Breastfeeding mothers who eat peanuts ‘can help their babies to beat allergies’

WOMEN who eat peanuts while their children are breastfeeding could cut their babies’ chances of becoming allergic.

Infants’ immune systems can be ‘primed’ to handle peanuts by being breastfed traces of them, a study has found.

It follows years of warnings not to give babies peanuts, which could be ditched in Britain later this year, as experts increasingly agree parents should ‘not delay’ in feeding them to children.

Canadian researchers followed 545 mothers and their children, of whom nearly one in ten were sensitive to peanuts by the age of seven. But only 1.7 per cent of children became allergic if their mother consumed peanuts while breastfeeding and then introduced them to food before the age of one.

Authors from the universities of Manitoba and British Columbia, whose study was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, said: ‘These results add to evidence that peanut consumption during infancy can reduce the risk of peanut sensitisation later.

‘[The findings] suggest this risk could be further reduced in breastfed infants by encouraging maternal consumption of peanuts during lactation.’ The number of British children who cannot tolerate peanuts has doubled in the past ten years, with one in 50 now having a peanut allergy. However, Public Health England advises introducing peanuts from six months, and may relax the guidelines still further later this year.

In the study, 58 per cent of mothers breastfed after consuming peanuts, with more than a quarter giving their children peanuts before the age of one.

Breastfeeding alone did not appear to protect children from peanut allergies, which were diagnosed using a skin prick test. Neither did simply providing children with peanuts before the age of one. However, both together dramatically cut allergy rates to 1.7 per cent. This compared to an average of 9.4 per cent which developed a peanut allergy across all children in the study.

About 17.6 per cent of babies went on to develop an allergy if they were fed peanuts, but not breastfed by mothers who ate them. And 15.1 per cent of children became allergic if their breastfeeding mothers ate peanutes, but the baby did not.

The authors said peanut traces, when delivered with breast milk, might ‘prime’ babies’ immune systems to cope when given peanuts a few months later.