The verdict

Yes. Peanuts and other nuts are safe to eat during pregnancy unless you are allergic to them yourself, or a doctor or midwife has told you otherwise. The NHS says exactly that, in one sentence, on its foods-to-avoid page.

The same applies to the other common allergens: eggs, cow's milk, wheat, soya, sesame, fish and shellfish. There is no national guidance anywhere telling pregnant people to avoid an allergenic food in order to prevent allergy in the baby. The seafood rules that do exist are about mercury and listeria, not allergy.

If you have a diagnosed nut allergy, nothing changes: you avoid nuts in pregnancy for the same reason you avoided them before.

Why this question exists at all

Because for a decade the UK told people the opposite, and the advice outlived its withdrawal.

In 1998 the UK Department of Health issued precautionary advice, on a recommendation from the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment, that women with atopy or atopic disease in the family may wish to avoid peanuts during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and to avoid giving peanut products to children under three. It was explicitly precautionary. The reasoning was that if exposure in the womb caused sensitisation, avoidance would prevent it.

The Committee on Toxicity reviewed that advice and published its statement in December 2008. Its conclusion, in its own words, was that "the shift in the balance of evidence since 1998 is such that the Committee believes that the previous precautionary advice to avoid peanut consumption during pregnancy, breast feeding and infancy, where there is atopy or atopic disease in family members, is no longer appropriate". The government revised the consumer-facing advice in August 2009.

That reversal is why you will still meet the old advice. It is in older books, on older websites, and in the memory of anyone who was pregnant before 2009.

What the evidence actually showed

Two assumptions behind the 1998 advice collapsed, and a third idea replaced them.

The 1998 position rested partly on laboratory work on umbilical cord blood cells, read as evidence that babies were being sensitised in the womb. The Committee on Toxicity concluded in 2008 that responses by cord blood mononuclear cells "do not necessarily reflect maternal exposure to the allergens concerned" - the assay was not measuring what it had been taken to measure.

The second collapse was the maternal-diet evidence itself. The Committee's summary is worth quoting because it is more honest than most guidance: the evidence "does not indicate whether maternal dietary consumption of peanut during pregnancy or lactation is more likely to increase or decrease the risk of sensitisation and allergy to peanut in the child. An effect in either direction is possible... Alternatively, there could be no effect at all."

The replacement idea was that sensitisation happens through the skin rather than the gut - that a baby with broken, eczematous skin meets peanut protein in household dust before ever eating it. The Committee flagged in 2008 that trials of early dietary introduction were underway. They reported in 2015, found that introducing peanut early substantially reduced peanut allergy in high-risk infants, and turned the whole framework around.

The practical upshot for pregnancy is simple: there is no allergy-prevention reason to change your diet, and there is a nutritional reason not to. FSANZ actually lists nuts and seeds among the foods to eat in pregnancy, for their calcium, phytoestrogens and omega-3 content.

How much is too much

There is no upper limit for nuts in pregnancy from any authority, because no authority has identified a hazard to set a limit against.

Two ordinary caveats apply and neither is allergy-related:

Salted nuts are salty. General healthy-eating advice on salt applies in pregnancy as it does otherwise.
Nut butters and chocolate-coated nuts are calorie-dense. Relevant if you are managing gestational diabetes or weight gain, and a conversation for your midwife rather than a safety question.

Raw nuts are not a listeria food. The mould toxin question that occasionally circulates about peanuts is a food-standards matter handled by import controls and testing, and no regulator raises it as a pregnancy-specific issue.

If you avoided nuts and now regret it

Nothing follows. Avoiding peanuts during pregnancy is not harmful in itself - it was standard advice for over a decade - and it does not cause allergy in your baby any more than eating them prevents it. The 2009 review concluded there was no clear evidence in either direction.

If you have already been avoiding nuts for weeks and want to start eating them, you can start today. There is no build-up period and no reason to introduce them gradually unless you are personally allergic.

The conversation worth having is the one about your baby's diet after birth. The NHS is explicit that delaying the introduction of peanut and hen's egg beyond 6 to 12 months may increase the risk of allergy, and that once introduced and tolerated, these foods should become part of your baby's usual diet. If there is a strong family history of allergy, or your baby has severe eczema or an existing egg allergy, ask your health visitor or GP - that is where the evidence-based intervention actually is.

Where guidance differs

On maternal diet in pregnancy it does not, and that is unusual enough to be worth stating precisely.

The NHS states that peanuts and other nuts are safe to eat unless you have been told not to have them by a doctor or midwife, or you have an allergy, and separately that if you are pregnant or breastfeeding you do not need to avoid foods that can trigger allergic reactions, including peanuts, unless you are allergic to them. The CDC's safer food choices table for pregnant people lists no allergenic food. Health Canada's pregnancy food safety guidance covers pathogens and does not restrict nuts. FSANZ lists nuts and seeds as a food to eat, and the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy states in its 2026 guideline that it is not necessary to remove common food allergens from the diet of breastfeeding mothers. New Zealand Food Safety's pregnancy advice does not mention them.

Where the numbers do diverge is infant timing, which is the next question rather than this one. The American Academy of Pediatrics says peanut can go in as early as 4 to 6 months for high-risk babies. The NHS says from around 6 months. ASCIA says usually around 6 months and not before 4, and is alone in specifying a maintenance frequency - at least once a week once introduced.

If a source still tells you to avoid peanuts during pregnancy, it is not describing a difference of national opinion. It is out of date by more than fifteen years.

Are peanuts safe during pregnancy?