Q. What is the latest about preventing peanut allergy in children? Should we eat them when pregnant, or avoid them?

A. The advice has changed. Cases of peanut allergy in children rose steeply in the first five years of this century, possibly because we advised against pregnant mothers eating them before that. In countries where that advice wasn’t given peanut allergy cases have remained rare. So the advice in Britain is now to let pregnant women eat what they like and we’ll see if allergies fall.