Infant feeding practices in the first year of life and allergy prevention

Research Project, 2021 – 2022

The project aims to study how the diet of infants during the first year of life is linked to the development of the immune system and the occurrence of allergies in children at one year. The focus will be on the timing of food introduction during the first year of life. The project will also study whether the child is breastfed or the type of formula the child receives and whether this can be linked to the maturation of the immune system.

The project will be carried out in a birth cohort, NICE (Nutritional impact on Immunological maturation during Childhood in relation to the Environment), which was recruited in 2015-18 in Luleå and includes 655 families followed from week 18 of pregnancy until the child is 4 years old. Details on breastfeeding, formula feeding and timing of solid food introduction have been collected using electronic questionnaires sent to parents in the NICE study every month during the first year of life. Allergy (atopic eczema, food allergy, asthma) in the children have been diagnosed by a pediatric allergy specialist at 12 months according to strictly standardised protocols.