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 Preventing Food Allergies in Infants Starts Before Birth
Moms with a history of allergies can help prevent or delay the development of food allergies in their infants by modifying their diets during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. 

A recent article published in the New England Journal of Medicine encourages mothers with a history of allergies to avoid eating peanuts during pregnancy and lactation to avoid introducing peanut proteins to their children within the first three years of life. 

Approximately 6 percent of children will develop a food allergy by the age of two. If one parent has allergies, their child has a 40 percent chance of developing allergies. If both parents have allergies, the risk of food allergy increases to 75 percent for their children. At least half of the children who develop a food allergy during the first year of life outgrow it by the time they are two or three years old, although some food allergies are more easily outgrown than others. Recent evidence suggests that only 20 percent of infants will outgrow a peanut allergy while the other 80 percent will have progressively more severe reactions as they grow older. 

"Currently, the only reliable therapy for food allergic reactions is restriction or complete elimination of the responsible food allergen and emergency management of reactions in case food allergen is accidentally ingested," says Dr John M James, an allergist-immunologist from Fort Collins, Colorado. 

Food allergy -- specifically peanut allergy -- has become a major health concern in the United States. Food allergy accounts for about 30,000 anaphylactic reactions, 2,000 hospitalizations, and 200 deaths each year with allergies to peanuts and tree nuts accounting for the majority of fatal and near-fatal reactions. 

Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder and president of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) stresses that all new mothers, as well as mothers-to-be, should be informed about the seriousness of food allergies. "Prenatal education is important, so that by the time a mother begins nursing her newborn, she will be equipped with the strategies to mitigate the chances that her baby will develop a food allergy," she says. 

Low Vitamin C Potentially Linked to Common Preemie Complications
Since the 18th century, sailors have known that vitamin C is necessary to prevent scurvy. Today, we also know that that vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant. New research on mice suggests that vitamin C may also play a critical role in preventing the life-threatening complications seen in premature infants. 

In a recent study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) demonstrated that mice with a defective gene involved in the transportation of vitamin C to the cells (depriving them of the vitamin during pregnancy and birth), died almost immediately after birth from bleeding in the brain and respiratory failure -- similar complications seen in human infants born prematurely. 

"What I'm suggesting is that we need to take a look at whether vitamin C in human fetuses before birth, transported from the maternal circulation, is a normal physiological factor that helps to mature and protect the lungs and brain of newborn infants," says Dr Robert Nussbaum, chief of the Genetic Disease Research Branch at NHGRI and co-author of the paper. 

"There may be a link between sub-clinical deficiencies in vitamin C in the mother -- that is, a deficiency not significant enough to cause scurvy -- and the problems that can occur when the fetus prepares to leave the womb," Dr Nussbaum adds. 

For pregnant women the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin C is 85 mg daily. Although these results in mice are preliminary and this area requires further investigation in humans, the implication is that low vitamin C levels in pregnant women could be easily rectified by ensuring women follow the RDA guidelines and eat a diet containing fresh fruits and vegetables daily.