--- title: The Peanut Question: Can Food Allergies Develop in the Womb? | TIME description: A new study has reopened the debate about whether a pregnant mother's diet can lead to food allergies for her child canonical: https://time.com/video/TPek27Qi/ og:title: The Peanut Question: Can Food Allergies Develop in the Womb? og:description: A new study has reopened the debate about whether a pregnant mother's diet can lead to food allergies for her child og:url: https://time.com/video/TPek27Qi/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/TPek27Qi/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Peanut Question: Can Food Allergies Develop in the Womb? twitter:description: A new study has reopened the debate about whether a pregnant mother's diet can lead to food allergies for her child twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/TPek27Qi/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Peanut Question: Can Food Allergies Develop in the Womb? > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Peanut Question: Can Food Allergies Develop in the Womb? [Watch (HLS stream): The Peanut Question: Can Food Allergies Develop in the Womb?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/TPek27Qi.m3u8) (2:33)  _Published 2010-11-08. A new study has reopened the debate about whether a pregnant mother's diet can lead to food allergies for her child_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:07 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Millions of People Wrongly Believe They Have Food Allergies](/video/nRJ24uoe/) ### Millions of People Wrongly Believe They Have Food Allergies [A New Therapy May Cure Kids of Peanut Allergy](/video/Rgy9MhRn/) ### A New Therapy May Cure Kids of Peanut Allergy [Infants Who Eat Peanuts Might Not Develop Allergies](/video/VojousEu/) ### Infants Who Eat Peanuts Might Not Develop Allergies --- ## Transcript >> About 6 percent of American children have food allergies, with 1 percent of them allergic to peanuts. And those numbers only continue to climb. What causes the body to mistakenly react so violently to such common foods? And when did the cases of mistaken identity start? Do they go as far back as the womb? And can what an expectant mom eat while she's pregnant affect whether or not her child gets a food allergy? That's a strong possibility, says Dr. Scott Sicherer, an allergy researcher at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He recently studied more than 500 infants, aged 3 months to 15 months, and asked their moms how often they ate peanuts while they were pregnant. >> The more peanut that the mother had reported eating during pregnancy, the more likely it was that we found that their child, when they were entered into the study, had a strong positive test to peanut. >> The results are only the latest in the ongoing discussion about pregnancy and food allergies. Between 1998 and 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics suggested that moms who came from families with histories of food allergies avoid certain highly- allergenic foods such as milk, eggs, soy, and peanut. But the lack of scientific evidence for this advice forced the Academy to rescind its recommendation in 2008. The results still don't make it any easier for pregnant moms to decide what to eat while they're expecting. And that's true even for researchers like Sarah Taylor- Black, a fellow in Sicherer's lab, who sees the issue both as a scientist and as a mother- to- be. >> There's conflicting data, and so that there is no hard and fast recommendation these days in that you can should just eat what you want, which is what I've been doing. And I have plenty of peanut butter and other allergenic foods during my pregnancy. So, we'll see how it works out. >> For now, until additional research clarifies exactly how food allergies start and which people are more vulnerable to developing then, it doesn't make sense to ask moms to restrict what they eat. >> I think this study basically-- fortunately or unfortunately tells us that we have more to answer on this, and thhat a parent should not feel guilty that they caused or didn't do something right and it led to a child's allergy. 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