The progressive rise in allergies in the past several decades is often attributed to an increasing tendency to keep kids too clean—a theory known as the hygiene hypothesis. According to this theory, exposure of young children to environmental microbes conditions the developing immune system to tolerate microbes and allergens later in life. Studies have shown, for example, that children raised on farms, which teem with microbes, developed fewer allergies than those raised in cities or non-farming rural regions. But it may not be the kids' exposure that counts; children of farming mothers are also less susceptible to allergies regardless of their own exposure. But the biological mechanisms behind this phenomenon were a mystery.