Colic, typically defined as excessive, inconsolable crying in an otherwise healthy infant, affects a substantial share of newborns and remains one of the most frequent reasons parents seek medical advice in the first months of life. Eczema, an inflammatory skin condition, is equally common and is widely recognized as an early marker of atopic disease. In the new study, 26 percent of the infants examined had colic, and 5 percent had both colic and eczema. That combination matters, the researchers argue, because previous work by the same team showed that babies with colic go on to have higher rates of atopic conditions later in childhood, including asthma, seasonal rhinitis, and food allergies. Infants who display both colic and eczema in infancy may represent the group at highest risk for allergic manifestations as they grow older.

Corresponding author Jenifer Lightdale, associate chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, framed the study as a departure from earlier approaches. Prior research on diet and colic has generally focused on interventions after birth, testing whether dietary changes in breastfeeding mothers or modifications of infant formula could ease symptoms once they were already present. The new investigation instead asked a more fundamental question: whether the dietary habits a woman maintains during pregnancy are associated with the risk that her baby will develop colic in the first place, and in particular the combined presentation of colic and eczema. According to Lightdale, the study is the first to examine how prenatal diet may influence this combination of infant conditions.

The evidence base for the analysis comes from Project Viva, a long-running prebirth cohort study that recruited more than 1,300 pregnant women from prenatal clinics in Eastern Massachusetts between April 1999 and November 2002. During pregnancy, participants completed regular food questionnaires, allowing the researchers to characterize their diets in detail. The team scored each participant’s diet using two established instruments: the Mediterranean Diet Score, or MDS, and the Dietary Inflammation Index, or DII. A high MDS score reflected a more healthful eating pattern, characterized by high intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and healthy fats, along with moderate intake of dairy and lean proteins. A high DII score, by contrast, signaled a less healthful, more pro-inflammatory diet, with high intake of red or processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, sodium, and refined grains.

The questionnaires also captured the participants’ consumption of foods commonly considered allergenic, including peanuts, peanut butter, and other nuts; finfish and shellfish; and eggs and dairy. This allowed the researchers to move beyond overall dietary patterns and ask whether specific food groups were individually associated with infant outcomes. The design is observational, meaning it identifies associations rather than proving that dietary changes directly cause differences in infant health, but the cohort’s size, prospective structure, and use of validated dietary scoring instruments give the findings considerable weight in a field where rigorous prenatal evidence has been scarce.

The results were striking in their consistency. Each additional point on the Mediterranean Diet Score was associated with a 15 percent reduction in the risk of having a baby with both colic and eczema, while each higher point on the Dietary Inflammation Index was associated with a 34 percent increase in that risk. In other words, the two dietary measures pointed in opposite directions, and both pointed toward the same conclusion: an anti-inflammatory, nutrient-dense dietary pattern during pregnancy was linked to a lower likelihood of the combined infant conditions, whereas a pro-inflammatory pattern was linked to a higher likelihood. The researchers also calculated that all of the associations they observed were strongest among infants whose mothers had a history of allergic conditions, suggesting that prenatal diet may be particularly consequential for children already predisposed to atopic disease.

Among the individual food groups examined, one stood out. For each weekly serving of seafood a pregnant woman consumed, her infant had a 25 percent lower chance of having both colic and eczema. Seafood is a rich source of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, and other nutrients that have been implicated in immune development and inflammatory regulation, although the study was not designed to isolate which specific components of seafood might be responsible. Notably, the other typical allergenic foods the researchers assessed, including dairy, eggs, and nuts, were not related to the risk of having a baby with colic and eczema. That finding may reassure pregnant women who have worried that eating common allergens during pregnancy could sensitize their babies, at least with respect to these particular infant outcomes.

First author Emily Oken, president of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Chan School, emphasized that the findings offer pregnant women a practical and achievable target. She noted that mothers wish to do all they can for their babies, but that financial and structural barriers often stand in the way of accessing healthy nutrition. Oken expressed hope that the study will be useful not only to individuals and families but also to the programs and services that support women’s health and nutrition, citing federal programs such as WIC and SNAP as well as initiatives administered by health plans and health systems, including food is medicine programs that integrate nutritional support into medical care. The framing reflects a growing recognition in public health that dietary guidance during pregnancy is only as effective as the access that accompanies it.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health under grant R01HD034568 and by a gift from an anonymous donor to Harvard Chan School. The authors disclosed a range of financial relationships outside the submitted work, including research grants and consulting arrangements with academic funders and industry partners, which are documented in the published paper. As an observational study, the research cannot establish causation, and residual differences between women who eat Mediterranean-style diets and those who do not, such as other lifestyle or socioeconomic factors, could contribute to the observed associations. Even so, the consistency of the results across two independent dietary scores, the dose-response pattern linking each additional seafood serving to lower risk, and the amplification of the associations among children of mothers with allergic histories together make a compelling case that prenatal diet deserves a place in conversations about infant colic and eczema. For expectant parents, the message is straightforward: a balanced, Mediterranean-style diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, healthy fats, and regular servings of seafood may offer benefits that extend well beyond pregnancy itself, potentially shaping an infant’s earliest experiences of comfort, skin health, and long-term allergy risk.

Subject of Research: Association between maternal prenatal diet quality and infant colic and eczema risk

Article Title: Healthy diet during pregnancy associated with reduced risk of infant colic, eczema

Article References: Healthy diet during pregnancy associated with reduced risk of infant colic, eczema. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: prenatal diet, Mediterranean diet, colic, eczema, seafood, infant health, allergy risk, Project Viva, Dietary Inflammation Index, pregnancy nutrition, atopic disease, JAMA Network Open