The children of women who eat peanuts or tree nuts during their pregnancy are less likely to develop nut allergies, according to a news study, reported by Reuters.

New research shows that the offspring of women who ate nuts more than five times a month during their pregnancy had a lower risk of nut allergies compared to kids whose mothers avoided the snacks.

"The take-home message is that the previous concerns or fears of the ingestion of nuts during pregnancy causing subsequent peanut or nut allergy is really unfounded," Dr. Michael Young, senior author and an attending physician in allergy and immunology at Boston's children's Hospital, told Reuters.

In an interview with CNN, Young said eating nuts during a pregnancy may help "build up a baby's tolerance to them after birth." This effect seemed to be strongest win women who ate at least five or more peanuts or tree nuts per week during their pregnancy.

CNN reported that previous studies on the same topic have indicated that they either didn't have an effect on the risk of allergies in children or they raised the risk.

Earlier studies indicated that nut consumption during pregnancy either didn't have any effect or actually raised the risk of allergies in children. But according to CNN, the authors said those studies were based "on less reliable data and conflict with more recent research."

In the new study, young and his colleagues used data from a national study of female nurses between the ages of 24 and 44 years old. The women periodically reported what they ate, starting from 1991.

Then the researchers then combined information on the women's diets from around the time of their pregnancies with data from another study of their children.

Based on a questionnaire the participants had to complete, researchers found that of 8,205 children in the study, 308 had food allergies, including 140 who were allergic to peanuts or tree nuts.

They found that about 1.5 percent of children of women who ate less than one serving of nuts per month during pregnancy developed nut allergies. Only 0.5 percent of children of women who ate nuts five or more servings of nuts per week developed nut allergies.

Based on their findings, researchers concluded that eating nuts while pregnant was not associated with an increased risk of nut allergies among children, Reuters reported.

Young told CNN more research assessing the impact of infant diets on nut allergies will come out next year.

The study was recently published in JAMA Pediatrics.