A mother and her daughter from Charleston are hoping that their efforts to enforce food allergy policies in schools will spare other parents and children from the anguish they’ve been through.

Jennifer Davis and daughter, Danielle’s purpose is sustained by the Food Allergies & Anaphylaxis Network, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit organization that is pushing for a federal law to create uniform guidelines for schools to follow to protect children having food allergies.

These rules are needed so parents won’t have to worry that their children might be in trouble because being exposed to foods they are allergic to while being in school, Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder and chief executive officer of the Food Allergies & Anaphylaxis Network said, according to the USA Today.

“Some schools have very comprehensive plans – they’ve been working with food allergies for a long time – and others are just getting started and they don’t know what to do,” she added.

The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act how the bill was called passed the House in April and is now pending in the Senate. The bill was introduced in the Senate by U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd who has herself one very good reason to fight for this bill to pass the Senate. Her 6-year-old daughter Grace is also allergic peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, sesame and tropical fruits. She has been into shocks four times because her allergies.

There are approximately 12 million Americans with food allergies, 2 million of whom are school-age children. Food allergies occur when the immune system identifies a food as harmful and triggers antibodies to attack it. Peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, soy and wheat account for 90 percent of all allergic reactions.

According to the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, food allergies lead to 150 death, 30,000 emergency room visits and 2,000 hospitalizations each year.