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The groundbreaking study found that maternal eczema doubled the risk of eczema in girls only, whereas paternal eczema did the same for boys. Similarly, maternal asthma is associated with increased risk of asthma only in girls, whereas paternal asthma is linked to asthma in boys.

Previous studies have revealed that allergies are hereditary, but believed that they were passed down from the mother.
The study, which began in 1999, comprised skin prick tests on 1,456 children at the ages of one, two, four, ten and 18. It took into consideration parents’ allergy history soon after the birth of the child.

Leanne Metcalf, assistant director of research and practice at Asthma UK, said, “This study is exciting because it opens up interesting new avenues of research that could tell us more about the relative role of genes, environment and gender in terms of asthma risk, and enable us to use this information to potentially prevent asthma in the future.”

Bevis Man of the British Skin Foundation, said, “We know that for parents it can be a distressing time if their child develops eczema of any severity, so this knowledge can at the very least prepare them for what may occur as their children grow up.”