peanuts

[lardybump]

I am 10 weeks pg and I am confused about peanuts. With my dd (16 months) I was told I could eat all nuts except peanuts. My friend said that this is wrong and now people are told they should eat peanuts. I dont get a midwife until 12 weeks so can not confirm this, and am craving peanut butter.

Does anyone know the correct advice on peanuts? I don?t get asthma or eczema nor does DP but my mum and sisters do...

[calsworld]

LB - watching with keen interest.......

[PetitFilou1]

See this from the Food Standards Agency website:

Should I avoid peanuts?

Serious allergies to nuts and nut products and some seeds affect about 1 to 2% of people in the UK. Your baby may be at higher risk of developing a nut allergy if you, the baby's father, brothers or sisters have certain allergic conditions such as hayfever, asthma and/or eczema.

If your baby is in this higher-risk group, you may wish to avoid eating peanuts and peanut products when you're pregnant and breastfeeding.

There have been some studies published recently that question whether women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should avoid peanuts and peanut products, because it may in fact increase the risk of your baby developing a peanut allergy. The Agency is carrying out a thorough review of all the research that has been done on this subject and will use this to decide whether our advice needs to be updated.

[niki1]

i was told to avoid peanuts if myself or husband had any allergies such as hayfever etc.unfortunately i was only told this at 12 weeks and had already eaten some.i havent had any since though just to be safe.having said that my mum was never told this and ate peanuts all through her pregnancy with me...and im fine with no allergies at all.(dh gets hayfever btw)

[MingMingtheWonderPet]

Would have avoided peanuts, except for the fact that peanut butter on toast was all I could manage for breakfast for weeks without vomiting!
I tried my best, I really did, but what can you do?

[Bellie]

was told by my midwife 2 weeks ago that should avoid peanuts where ever possible, but if I really fancied some have some (as long as there were no peanut allergy in the immediate family)

[MeMySonAndI]

No idea, in my country there is no such restriction and severe nut allergies are almost unheard of. Having said that, peanuts are rarely roasted a process that increases their allergen properties considerably. They are regularly roasted here which I wonder if is actually that the case of the problem.

When I was pregnant, I thought that given my genetic background, and that this recommendation was unexitant back at home, that it shouldn't be a problem if I had one or two Snickers bars... well, DS has shown up with such amount of allergies he must be one of the most allergic children over the planet... and yes, his worst allergy is peanut.

Sometimes I think that peanut business in pregnancy is like a russian roulette.

[CantSleepWontSleep]

When I was pregnant with dd the official advice was to avoid peanuts. Now the official advice has changed to say that you only need to avoid them if there are nut allergies in the family.

[MeMySonAndI]

The official advice has not been officially changed yet as the trials are not yet completed, but these trials have received so much attention that many people thinks the recommendation has changed. (they are adding a cautionary note to protect themselves, I think)

BTW, as far as I'm aware the recommendation was to avoid if you had a family history of allergies be hayfever or full blown peanut allergy.

[lardybump]

Oh bugger I guess I need to avoid peanuts then as mum and sisters all get asthma and eczema. Also dp brother gets hayfever....

Thanks for your help... The peanut butter has now been put away again..... boo hoo.

[laweaselmys]

I got told not to eat nuts of any kind if I could avoid it... but I had childhood asthma and eczema. I have to say I'm not particularly convinced because the nurse that told me this said that basically the idea was to have a 'batch' of babies over a certain amount of time whose mothers didn't eat nuts and particularly peanuts when pregnant and see if it made any difference, in a really badly constructed trial.

BTW the NHS 'pregnancy' book they gave me last week also said I couldn't eat them (for the same reasons) from what other people have said I can only assume we are stuck in another conflicting advice debate.

[calsworld]

LB - MeMySonAndI has hit the nail on the head for me, I thought that the advice had changed , no satay chicken for me tonight!

I have eczema, asthma (although v v mild), hayfever and oral allergy syndrome. The joy.

[MeMySonAndI]

Yeah... it buggers everything up...

TBH I still find it difficult to believe that all this mess is the result of a snickers bar I ate during pregnancy (we have hay fever and eczema in the family but peanut allergy was something we have never heard of until we mve to England). But just in case... if I were to become pregnant I would avoid them just in case.

[2cats2many]

The jury is totally out on then avoid/ don't avoid peanuts question. No-one actually knows which option is more likely to cause peanut allergies.

FWIW I ate peanuts throughout my first pregnancy. There's no history of allergies in m y family and I'm veggie so its an easy protein fix. My dd has no allergies to anything so far.

I'm pregnant again now and am eating them again.

[stiggywiggywoo]

There was a Dutch study published in the last week or 2 that suggested that eating peanut butter regularly when pregnant increased the chances of your baby getting asthma by 50%. I saw it on the bbc website -
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7505682.stm. Hope this is of some use - if the link works.

[Qally]

I had childhood eczema & asthma, and DH has serious allergic rhinitis. I also couldn't eat once morning sickness wore off, because food still repulsed me. My midwife told me that if peanut butter was all I could stomach, then I should eat it - that if no nut allergies were in the family it was worth the risk. I ate about a pot and a half in two weeks. Do I feel great about it? Nope, not really, but pregnancy is about the possible, and I'd have felt pretty awful about starving the bean, too. And I've been happily eating ever since, with no peanut involvement, so it clearly worked for me.

I think it's like a lot of things - best avoided if that doesn't cause you problems, but worry about it is probably worse than the consumption.

[dan39]

I thought I had read stuff that said that peanut allergies in the uk had increased since the advice has been for ple to avoid in pregnancy....sorry can't think of thr reference. I checked cos I too could only stomach toast and peanut butter at one point. Am frustrated by this argument now as I can either assume I am right and its okay, or feel guilty and worried that I am wrong and have condemned unborn child to a 50% chance of asthma!

[fledtoscotland]

it changes every year. when i was pregnant with DS i couldnt eat them, at the start of this pregnancy i could and now, with 5 weeks to go, i cant!

my theory, FWIW - if you want peanuts, eat peanuts! i would only exercise caution if you or a close relative had an anaphalactic reaction to peanuts

[BCLass]

I used to have eczema and my husband has asthma. I raised the whole peanut thing with the doctor and he told me not to do anything different to what I was doing pre pregnancy - this was about 20-odd weeks ago.

[littleeyesmum]

This is something very close to my heart. My dh and father have lots of allergies and my brother and I have hayfever. Because of this I dillignetly avoided peanuts at all costs during my pregnancy with dd, even though I craved snickers, peanut butter etc.

When I became pregnant last year (sadly later mc), I read something in the BMJ (I'm a doctor - can't attach the link as needs a password I'm afraid - but you can find it on www.parliament.co.uk). In September 2007 the house of lords issued a statement that the advice to avoid peanuts should be withdrawn as it was completely without evidence. In fact, peanut allergy went up by 117% in Britain between 2001 and 2005. It's a subject that's incredibly difficult to properly study - after all, peanuts appear in disguise in all sorts of food stuffs - but what we do know about allergies is that a key point in the development of the immune system is the ability to distinguish 'self' from foreign material. If the fetus is not exposed to something whilst it is developing, logically it is more likely to see it as foreign and therfore react to it.

I brought this up with my midwife (I am now 9 weeks pregnant again, fingers crossed) and she said the advice was still to avoid peanuts. I have completely ignored this and am greatly enjoying my crunchy nut cornflakes every morning, and like many others find peanut butter on toast one of the few things I can stomach!

[MrsBadger]

The only thing that has been consistently and significantly linked with peanut allergies later in life is using creams containing peanut oil on babies with broken skin (eg eczema, nappy rash)...

[WorzselMummage]

Pleased to read this.. I LOVE Peanut Butter !

[bikerunski]

I love peanut butter too, but have family allergies to pollen, house dust, bee stings, antibiotics, asthma, ecezema and hayfever. And anasethics. Haven't had peanut butter since I found out I was pg, then continued not have ing peanuts on my midwife's advice since I first saw her at 7 weeks, found out at 5 weeks.

Have tried almond butter, cashew nut butter and hazelnut butter, but they're just not the same.

[dan39]

Littleyesmum, thank you for that sensible bit - think that must be what i have seen somewhere! I eat pb on toast daily and now that you have mentioned crunchy nut cornflakes I am thinking of a shop run...
Also good luck with your pregnancy - 9 weeks is good going - fingers crossed!

[TreadmillMom]

Bollox! DH has hayfever, 1st cousin has ecezema and a nut allergy, I ate peanuts all through 1st 2 pregnancies and DC are perfect. 32 weeks pregnant with 3rd and have just troughed through a whole bag of honey crunch peanuts bought at the market. Yum, yum.