Fish cuts babies' risk of eczema

Giving babies fish to eat can help stave off eczema, according to research published.

Introducing fish into the diet before the age of nine months cut the chance of a baby developing eczema by their first birthday by 24%.

Experts found it did not matter whether babies ate lean and white fish or oily types, such as mackerel and fresh tuna. The same study also found that keeping pet birds in the home reduced the risk of eczema by 65%.

Experts from Sweden sent questionnaires to 4,921 families six months after the birth of their child and again when the child was 12 months. Medical birth register data was also obtained for the babies.

The study found that at the age of six months, 14% of the infants had suffered eczema or were suffering from it currently. By the age of one, this figure was 21%. The average age at which a baby developed eczema was four months.

When analysing possible factors influencing the development of eczema, the experts found that genes played an important role. Babies were far more likely to suffer if their brother, sister or mother also had eczema.

Introducing fish before nine months of age and having a bird in the home were beneficial, but the point at which dairy was introduced into the diet had no effect.

Keeping a furry pet in the house was also found to have no effect on the risk of the child developing eczema.

Writing ahead of print in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, the authors said: "One in five infants suffer from eczema during the first year of life. Familial eczema increased the risk, while early fish introduction and bird keeping decreased it. Breastfeeding and time of milk and egg introduction did not affect the risk."

The prevalence of atopic eczema and other allergic disease has risen sharply in developed countries in recent decades, the authors wrote. Environmental and dietary factors are thought to play a part.

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