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Kate Middleton, the lovely Duchess of Cambridge (a.k.a Prince William’s better half) politely refused a taste of famine-fighting peanut paste during a royal visit to a UNICEF distribution center in Copenhagen the other day. This seemingly innocent no-thank you has got the rumor mill a spinning. Since, according to Kate’s reps, she doesn’t have any food allergies, it seems saying no to nuts means she’s probably, likely, most-def pregnant.
Personally, I was left scratching my head with this conclusion-jumping. No tuna, okay. No alcohol, I get it. No yummy soft cheese or deli meat, I know the drill. But peanuts? I ate peanut butter on toast just about every morning when I was pregnant. And there may have been one or five instances with me and a bag of mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Was I not supposed to? I asked my friend Lindsay. She’s a Brit and a midwife. She must know! She looked puzzled. "I don’t remember that being protocol." So I did a little digging.
It seems, at one time both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the British Food Standards Agency advised women that they may wish to avoid peanuts during pregnancy and breastfeeding if there was a history of food or other allergies like hay fever in their immediate family. Today, however, the peanut ban has been lifted both here and abroad because there was no clear evidence connecting eating peanuts during pregnancy to your babe’s chances of being allergic.
Even though a 2010 study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology linked third trimester peanut-eating to an increase in nut sensitivity in babies, the study authors believe the AAP revised recommendations should stand strong. Is Kate pregs? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps she avoided the nut paste because, I don’t know, she doesn’t like eating in front of the world or she didn't want to blop any on her red coat or she hates peanuts -- or she’s totally carrying the heir in there. What do you think?
