| The general advice is (as long as you aren't allergic to them) that you can eat peanuts perfectly safely-in fact they are an excellent source of protein. The uncertainty comes if you or your partner are allergic to peanuts, in which case it is thought that peanut proteins could potentially cross the placenta and 'sensitize' the baby to peanut allergy in later life. We must say here that there is absolutely no scientific evidence that prenatal exposure to peanuts causes allergy in the baby-the advice from the health agencies of several countries is purely precautionary. The largest study to date, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003, showed that there was no evidence of prenatal sensitization from the maternal diet, and peanut specific immunogobulins were not detectable in the cord blood of babies (Lack G et al N Engl J Med 2003 Mar 13;348(11):977-85)
|
Register to be entered into our weekly prize draw!