Responding to Pat Gima's well-taken point about mothers not consuming things to which they know they are allergic or sensitive: a mom who is NOT nut-sensitive may carry & nurse a child who IS, if the child inherits this from the father. The father may not know or remember that he had nut sensitivities, since outgrown, as a child. (Let's hope the father knows if he is *currently* allergic to nuts!) This happened to me with my firstborn so it's not just hypothetical for me. :-) I am not nut-sensitive. My husband was nut-sensitive as a child but has long been able to eat all kinds of nuts and peanuts in moderation. Our son landed in the hospital emergency room at 9 months of age suffering an anaphylactic reaction after ingesting pecan proteins via my breastmilk. Later, at 3+ yrs of age (with that many years of breastfeeding under his belt), he passed food-challenge tests with flying colors, coming up *negative* for all nut and peanut allergies. He could very well grow up to father a child without remembering that he was severely nut-allergic as a baby. Also, there are surely many cases of peanut or nut allergy in children who have non-allergic parents. Something has to be happening to result in the reported increase in peanut allergies. Considering that nut-sensitive parents are likely to avoid nuts, and are probably procreating at about the same rate as the rest of us anyway, the increase must be coming from some other population. Wishing I could eat nuts now as I gestate my second child, and thankful for the wonderful properties of mother's milk, Margaret LLLL Longmont, CO *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html