Eating Peanuts in Pregnancy May Cause Allergy

The researches shows that babies with indication of food allergies whose mothers ate peanuts during pregnancy may have an increased risk for potentially peanut allergies.

The more peanuts the new mothers in the research ate during their pregnancy, the higher their babies’ risk for sensitivity to peanuts, researchers reported.

The findings do not prove that eating peanuts during pregnancy is a risk factor for peanut allergies in the first year or so of life. But they do emphasize the need for more studies to answer the question.

“Our study looked at sensitivity, not peanut allergy,” researchers say. “It is going to be a few years before we identify whether these children really do develop true peanut allergies.”