Researchers from Sweden's Queen Silvia Children's Hospital sent questionnaires to 4,921 families six months after the birth of their baby and again when the child was 12 months old.
At six months 14 percent of infants had suffered eczema, the study found. By the age of one, this figure was 21 percent. The average age at which eczema developed was four months. The children were all part of an ongoing health study looking at almost 17,000 infants born in 2003 in western Sweden.
The results concluded that fishy diet before the age of nine months cuts the chance of a baby developing the skin condition by their first birthday by 24 percent. No significant difference was found between children who ate white fish, and those who ate other types of fish richer in omega-3.
The same study also found that keeping pet birds in the home reduced the risk of eczema by 65 per cent. Also, the point at which dairy products were introduced into the diet had no effect.
The study is published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
