Study to test if the diet of mothers prevents the early sign of food allergy in babies

Tuesday August 5, 2025

Essay NIH To assess whether eating peanuts, eggs during pregnancy, breastfeeding protects infants.

A sponet clinical trial of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) testing whether maternal consumption of peanuts and eggs during pregnancy and breastfeeding prevents babies from developing an early sign of allergies to these foods have started today. Food allergy affects around 8% of children in the United States and sometimes causes severe or deadly reactions. Awards and eggs are two of the most common food allergens in early childhood. The study of pregnant mothers who are not allergic to peanuts or eggs, but whose babies are at high risk of food allergy because the mother has a parent, a brother or a sister or an allergic disease. The National Institute of Infectious Allergies and Diseases of NIH (NIAID) finances the trial.

“The introduction of food allergens such as peanuts and eggs in infants’ food regimes around the age of four to six months has proven to be an important element in the prevention of food allergies, but this intervention arrives too late for certain children,” said Alkis Togias, head of the branch of allergies, asthma and the biology of Niaid airways. “We need additional and previous strategies to help prevent the development of food allergies in high -risk children for them.”

Studies have shown that before some infants never eat peanut or egg products, their immune system has already produced an antibody called immunoglobulin e (IGE) against these foods, and this antibody is a precursor of food allergy. These results indicate the need to develop strategies for prevention of food allergies from early childhood preceding the introduction of solid foods.

Until now, research on the relationship between consumption or avoidance of allergenic food by mothers during pregnancy and breastfeeding and development of a food allergy in their babies have given contradictory results. The new clinical trial aims to clearly determine the effectiveness of including peanuts and eggs pending the diet of mothers before and after birth to prevent their babies from developing ige against these foods before eating them.

The study team will enroll 504 mother-child pairs, a quarter at the University of Rochester Medicine in Rochester, New York and three quarters elsewhere. Mothers will be affected at random to eat or avoid peanuts and eggs, from their third quarter and continue breastfeeding. Investigators will provide advice on the quantities of peanuts and eggs to eat every week or advice on how to avoid eating peanuts and eggs, as the case may be. Mothers will be encouraged to feed their breast milk infants exclusively for at least three months. The main objective of the study is to learn the proportion of infants in each group whose blood has IgE against peanuts, eggs or two to 4 to 6 months, before eating these foods.

Study investigators and other persons involved in the evaluation and analysis of the data will not know which mother-child pairs are in the peanut and egg avoidance group and which in the consumption group. The pairs of mother-child will be followed until the children become 1 year old.

The study, called the mother’s study awaiting consumption or avoidance of peanuts and eggs (escape), will be led by Kirsi Järvinen-seppo, MD, PH.D., chief of pediatric allergy and immunology and distinguished professor in pediatric allergy at the University of Rochester Medicine. The results are expected in 2029.

More information on the trial, including contacts for those interested in participating, is available on clinicals.gov under the identifier of the study NCT06260956.

Niaid conducts and supports research – in NIH, the United States and the world – to study the causes of infectious and immune mediation, and to develop better means of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. Press releases, information sheets and other NIAID -related documents are available on the Niaid website.

On the National Institutes of Health (NIH): The NIH, the country’s medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the American department of health and social services. NIH is the main federal agency that leads and supports basic, clinical and translational medical research, and studies the causes, treatments and remedies for common and rare diseases. For more information on the NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

NIH … Transforming discovery into health^®