Infant feeding and allergy prevention: a review of current knowledge and recommendations. A EuroPrevall state of the art paper

Abstract

The relationship between infant feeding patterns and the later development of food allergies has been the focus of much debate and research over the last decade. National recommendations have been made by many countries on how to feed infants to reduce the risk of food allergy but due to the lack of firm evidence the recommendations differ widely. This review has been developed as part of EuroPrevall, a European multicentre research project funded by the European Union, to document the differing feeding recommendations made across Europe, to investigate the current evidence base for any allergy prevention feeding recommendations and to identify areas where further research is needed. This review will also provide information which, when combined with the infant feeding data collected as part of EuroPrevall, will give an indication of compliance to national feeding guidelines which can be utilised to assess the effectiveness of current dissemination and implementation strategies.