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New mothers should be eating peanuts during breastfeeding and introducing them earlier to infants.

A new Canadian study has found eating the snack while breastfeeding combined with introducing them to your infant before the age of one is a better approach.

It discovered that the lowest rate of adverse reactions among children was for mothers who did both of these, reports Daily Mail.

If mothers did one but not the other, the rate of allergic reactions was ‘significantly higher’, it was discovered.

Recent trials have shown that avoiding the nuts during infancy increases the risk of allergy. However, these studies did not address peanut consumption by the mother while breastfeeding.

Dr Meghan Azad, a scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba in Winnipeg where the study was carried out, said: ‘What’s interesting about this study is that it is the first to consider maternal peanut consumption while breastfeeding together with the timing of peanut introduction to infants.’

The researchers analyzed data from an allergy and asthma study that tracked 342 children born in Winnipeg and Vancouver in 1995 from birth to the age of 15.

Children whose mothers consumed peanuts while breastfeeding and directly introduced peanuts before 12 months had the lowest incidence of reactions to peanuts at 1.7 percent.

Rates jumped to 15.1 per cent for those whose mothers eat peanuts while breast-feeding but delayed introducing peanuts to their infant after a year.

Dr Azad noted that study was limited by focusing exclusively on children at high risk of developing allergies.

‘We hope to use these results as a starting point for more research to better inform guidelines for preventing food allergies in children,’ said Dr Tracy Pitt, first author of the study and pediatric allergist at Humber River Hospital.

The study was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 

Healthy snack

In addition to their monounsaturated fat content, peanuts feature an array of other nutrients that, in numerous studies, have been shown to promote heart health. Peanuts are good sources of vitamin E, niacin, folate, protein and manganese.

They are packed with many important B-complex groups of vitamins such as riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B-6, and folates. 100 g of peanuts provide about 85% of RDI of niacin, which contributes to health and blood flow to the brain.

Nuts are a rich source of minerals like copper, manganese, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, and selenium.

Just a handful of peanuts per day provide enough recommended levels of phenolic antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and protein.

Does anyone in your family suffer a severe food allergy?

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  • We love our nuts and I certainly ate them during pregnancy and breastfeeding and gave them at a young age to my kids. We’ve no nut allergy in the family.

    Reply

  • The trouble is that every year there’s a new study that reverses the introduce/ don’t introduce advice.

    Reply

  • i’m sure it’s apart of a healthy diet and variety is great for baby. it’s great to try to prevent these allergies

    Reply

  • No food allergies in my family either. I understand a lot of people have a peanut allergy. If introducing them during pregnancy can help avoiding it, I would surely try it!!

    Reply

  • my daughter has an egg allergy – I ate eggs while pregnant so guess the theory doesn’t cover all foods then!

    I love nuts and I consume nuts during both my pregnancies and while feeding, my girls are 10 and 6 and I don’t believe they have a nut allergy

    Reply

  • I didn’t breastfeed and don’t like peanuts so wouldn’t have eaten them anyway. I’m fairly certain my son had peanut butter before age 1 and he’s never had any reactions.

    Reply

  • Thank God no severe food allergies in our family ! And nuts & seeds always have belong to our daily diet, can’t live without them !

    Reply

  • No-one in our family has problems with food allergy,lucky!

    Reply

  • how many times will this be researched, one minute we are to eat all the peanuts then we are to stay right away from them now back to eating them again!


    • This is the difficulty with research; different research and possible outcomes.

    Reply

  • Interesting read …do hope the research is on going.

    Reply

  • Interesting research but as stated in the article the research group is exclusive. Certainly a lot more research and a wider group is needed.

    Reply

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