14 DAY TRIAL // A team of Finnish researchers has found that 11% of children conceived in February/March, developed food allergies.
This new study suggests that we can trace the likelihood of a child to develop food allergies back to the season during which he/she has completed their first three months in the womb.
The study accounted for a little under 6,000 children, born between 2001 and 2006, that lived in only one area of Finland.
Out of the entire panel, just under 1,000 were tested for food allergies before they turned 4, with a very high possibility of having a positive allergenic response in the first year of life.
Until the age of 4, the allergenic response depended on the season of birth, from 5% for kids born in June or July to 9.5% for children born in October or November.
11% of children whose 11th week of fetal development had happen during April or May developed food allergies, unlike only 6% for those who had the same fetal development stage in December or in January.
The scientists looked for the cause of this phenomenon and found out that levels of birch and alder pollen were very high during April and May.
So they narrowed the figures to specific allergens and discovered that kids who ended their first 3 months of fetal development in April or May had 3 times more risks of being allergic to eggs and milk than those reaching this stage in November or December.
The explanation given to all this is that the fetus starts to produce antibodies to allergens during the 11th week of development and antibodies to specific allergens by around the 24th week, so kids born in autumn or winter have higher levels of circulating antibodies to allergens.
This research was published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.