The study found that teens who ate it up to the age of five were 71% less likely to develop an allergy than if they were not exposed to it.
The advice from the team at King's College London is to offer soft peanut butter during weaning, and then regularly and in large quantities thereafter until the age of five.
It should be noted that persons under the age of five should not eat whole or chopped peanuts due to the risk of choking.
This goes against previous advice that many will remember not to give peanuts to young children for fear of allergies.
New ideas about weaning and feeding for young children are emerging all the time, such as a rising trend of baby-led weaning. Here we discuss the practice in more detail and what it means for babies and children.
What is baby-led weaning?
Baby-led weaning refers to the practice of offering solid foods to babies only when they start solid foods, encouraging them to learn to feed themselves from the start of the weaning period.
It skips the stage of spoon-feeding mashed or pureed foods. Instead, food would be provided in soft pieces that can be held in the hand and eaten without assistance – although supervision is still recommended.
The term baby-led weaning was coined in 2003 by Dr. Gill Rapley, who has written extensively on the topic.
Some research suggests that baby-led weaning encourages babies to regulate their own food intake, developing an innate ability to respond to hunger cues and know when they are full.
This could help them self-regulate food intake throughout their lives and help them achieve a healthy weight as children and adults.
When should you start baby-led weaning?
Although this will vary from child to child, the general recommendation is to start baby-supervised weaning from around six months of age.
Most importantly, babies can sit upright, bring food to their mouth, chew and swallow without support.
You can see if this behavior occurs during play, with babies demonstrating this by putting toes or pacifiers in their mouths, just as they would with food.
What is the four-day rule for baby-led weaning?
As with traditional weaning, it's important to know how your baby reacts to different foods.
That's where the four-day rule for baby-led weaning comes into play, requiring new foods to be introduced one food at a time, four days apart.
For example, you can introduce avocado to the baby on Monday and then wait until Friday before introducing another food.
This makes it easier to determine exactly how your baby reacts to that food and to know which food is causing a particular reaction if it occurs.