Pregnancy pollen child asthma risk
Tuesday January 8th, 2013
Children are at increased risk of developing asthma if their mother is exposed to high pollen levels in the later stages of pregnancy, according to a new study.
Although
previous studies have shown a link between being born during the pollen
season and a risk of allergies, few have looked at pollen exposure at
different times of pregnancy.
Now, researchers at the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Sweden’s Umeå University have conducted such a study involving 110,000 pregnancies in the Stockholm area.
They found that high levels of pollen exposure during the last 12 weeks of pregnancy led to a significantly increased risk of hospitalisation for asthma symptoms during the first year of the children’s lives.
The analysis was adjusted for factors such as maternal smoking and pollen season, but researchers believe there could be several reasons for the association - asthma symptoms may affect the foetus’s environment and immune system development.
It is also possible that pregnant women with severe reactions to pollen suffer complications and sometimes give birth earlier than they otherwise would have done - increasing the risk of respiratory problems in the child, the researchers say.
Tags: Allergies & Asthma | Childbirth and Pregnancy | Europe | Women's Health & Gynaecology
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