Can You Help to Avoid Food Allergies in Babies?

If one child has food allergies, how can a pregnant woman help ensure her next child won't be affected too? By avoiding exposure to the food her child is allergic is to -- starting in the third trimester and continuing into the second year of life, say researchers from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown, Australia. The findings were presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Seven out of 10 babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures had no food allergies vs. 45% of babies whose moms did not follow the doctors' advice.

That means eliminating the offending food not only from the diet but also from the environment, they say. "Take peanut allergies, for example. If someone eats a lot of peanuts in your house, there is going to be aerosolized peanut protein in the environment. You need a clean household."

The researchers say they undertook the study because "parents of kids with food allergies came to us asking, 'What can we do so this doesn't happen again?' They were desperate." The study involved 274 pregnant mothers of children with peanut, egg, or milk allergies. "We didn't tell them what to do, but gave them a lot of advice about how to avoid the food [their child was allergic to]. We started in the third trimester so everything would be in place when the baby was born," they said.

The women were also encouraged to breastfeed, which has been shown to protect against the development of allergies in some studies. About two-thirds of the women followed their advice. At 1 and 1/2 and 3 years of age, the babies were evaluated for symptoms of allergic disease and given skin prick tests to determine if they showed susceptibility to the same food allergies as their older siblings. "The results were dramatic," research says.

Thirty percent of babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures had one or more food allergies vs. 55% of babies whose moms didn't take those avoidance measures, Babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures were less likely to develop symptoms of asthma: Only 11% exhibited symptoms by the age of 3, compared with 43% of babies whose mothers didn't avoid the offending foods.

Bonnie - a very compelling study that shows once again how important it is to be cognizant of what women put into their bodies during pregnancy.