According to a new research, a pregnant woman's exposure to farms may confer protection to her newborn from allergies and other childhood atopic diseases.

In a study of the children of 18 farming mothers and 59 non-farming mothers, the researchers believe they have proved their hypothesis that a mother's farm exposure affects her baby's T regulatory cells. These cells, it is now believed, act to suppress immune responses and thereby maintain immune system homeostasis to contribute to healthy immune development.

"We found that the babies of mothers exposed to farms have more and better functioning regulatory T cells," explained bianca Schaub, M.D., who led the research team at University Children's Hospital in Munich. "The effect was strongest among those mothers who entered barns or drank farm milk."

Of course, considering the small number of test subjects, these results are far from conclusive. But it does jive with the hygiene hypothesis, doesn't it?