Should Pregnant Women Avoid Peanuts?
peanut update
- A new study suggests that pregnant women who eat peanuts are more likely to have babies who test positive for peanut allergies than moms who don’t eat peanuts.
Dr. Scott Sicherer, pediatrics professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said it was because the peanut proteins may circulate to the fetus and cause an allergic response.
The study, published online in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, evaluated 503 infants who had eczema or tested positive for milk or egg allergies, indicators of a possible peanut allergy.
“While our study does not definitively indicate that pregnant women should not eat peanut products during pregnancy, it highlights the need for further research in order make recommendations about dietary restrictions,” said Sicherer.
Peanut allergy is one of the most common allergies; more than 3 million Americans have some kind of nut allergy, and peanut allergies have more than tripled between 1997 and 2008, according to a study, also by Sicherer, published earlier this year in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Dr. Scott Sicherer is a peanut allergy expert and author of The Complete Peanut Allergy Handbook.
