Pregnant women who eat more peanuts and tree nuts during pregnancy might be less likely to bear nut-allergic children, a new study suggests.

The research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, supports the current consensus among medical professionals that delaying the introduction of nuts, milk, fish, shellfish, eggs and other highly allergenic foods in young children doesn't prevent the development of food allergies, said Michael C. Young, associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and a senior author of the study.

The findings inversely link a pregnant mother's consumption of peanuts or tree nuts with the onset of nut allergies in her child. The more nuts the mother ate while pregnant, or within a year before or after pregnancy, the lower the risk that the child would go on to develop nut allergies, Dr. Young said. The study doesn't demonstrate a causal relationship between a pregnant mother's diet and the onset of nut allergies in her offspring, he said.

The researchers stopped short of advising pregnant women to eat more nuts. Further, interventional studies—in which researchers would separate participating pregnant women into groups and prescribe their diets, rather than simply track their consumption—are required before they can make such a recommendation.

Researchers led by A. Lindsay Frazier of the Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center in Boston, analyzed data from 8,205 children born between Jan. 1, 1990 and Dec. 31, 1994 to mothers who had reported their diets at or around the time of pregnancy. Of the children they tracked, 140 had developed a peanut or tree nut allergy by 2009. All self-reported cases of physician-diagnosed nut allergies were reviewed independently by two pediatricians, according to the study.