Just Say No to Nuts During Pregnancy

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, July 16, 2008; 3:00 AM

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TUESDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- If you've got a strong family history of food allergies or allergic asthma, you might want to think twice before munching a handful of nuts when you're pregnant.

That's because recent research has found that regular consumption of nut products during pregnancy raises the odds of having a child with asthma symptoms by nearly 50 percent.

The study, published in the July 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine found "consistent positive associations between maternal nut product consumption, such as peanut butter, during pregnancy and wheeze, dyspnea (shortness of breath), steroid use, doctor-diagnosed asthma and persistent wheeze in children from 1 to 8 years of age," said study author Saskia Willers, a doctoral candidate at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

As many as 4 percent of American children have food allergies, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Slightly more than 1 percent of people in the United States -- or about 3 million -- are allergic to peanuts or tree nuts.

Most allergies develop as a result of repeated "sensitization" to an allergen in susceptible individuals, and each time the body is exposed to the allergen, the reactions tend to increase. It's already recommended that children under 3 not be given nuts or nut products, because their immune systems are still developing and may be more susceptible to allergens, explained Dr. Jennifer Appleyard, chief of allergy and immunology at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit.

"If you say avoid nuts in children, and for nursing mothers because peanut protein can be transferred through milk, do we need to take it a step further and limit nuts during pregnancy?" said Appleyard.

To try to answer that question, Willers and her colleagues reviewed information gathered from interviews of more than 4,000 pregnant women -- 1,327 with a history of allergy or asthma and 2,819 with no such history. The women were asked about their diets, and their children were followed from birth to 8 years of age to assess whether or not diet impacted the risk of developing asthma.