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Friday, July 11, 2025

YOUR DAI­LY HEALTH

Preterm birth linked with asthma

by

20140130

Ba­bies who are born pre­ma­ture­ly may be at in­creased risk for de­vel­op­ing asth­ma or an­oth­er type of wheez­ing dis­or­der lat­er in child­hood, a new study finds.

The study re­viewed in­for­ma­tion from 30 pre­vi­ous stud­ies that to­geth­er in­clud­ed about 1.5 mil­lion chil­dren (most born af­ter 1995) from six con­ti­nents, who were fol­lowed for time spans rang­ing from six months to 18 years.

About 14 per cent of chil­dren born preterm (be­fore 37 weeks of preg­nan­cy) were di­ag­nosed with a wheez­ing dis­or­der, such as asth­ma, lat­er in child­hood, com­pared with about 8 per cent of chil­dren who were born at full term (37 weeks or more).

When the re­searchers took in­to ac­count fac­tors that might in­crease the risk of de­vel­op­ing a wheez­ing dis­or­der, such as parental smok­ing, ba­bies born preterm were still about 46 per cent more like­ly to de­vel­op a wheez­ing dis­or­der in child­hood com­pared with those born at term.

Very pre­ma­ture ba­bies (born at less than 32 weeks of ges­ta­tion) were near­ly three times more like­ly to de­vel­op a wheez­ing dis­or­der com­pared with those born at full term.

If no ba­bies in the study had been born pre­ma­ture­ly, the re­searchers es­ti­mate that the in­ci­dence of child­hood wheez­ing dis­or­ders would drop by at least 3 per cent.

The study "pro­vides com­pelling ev­i­dence that preterm birth is an im­por­tant ear­ly-life risk fac­tor for wheez­ing dis­or­ders in child­hood," the re­searchers wrote in the Jan­u­ary is­sue of the jour­nal PLOS Med­i­cine. In ad­di­tion, the find­ings "high­light the press­ing need for pri­ori­ti­sa­tion of re­search in­to pre­ven­tion of preterm birth and the (cause) of its ad­verse con­se­quences for sub­se­quent res­pi­ra­to­ry health," they said.

About 11 per cent of ba­bies born world­wide are born pre­ma­ture­ly, and the rate is ris­ing in many re­gions, the re­searchers said.

Pre­ma­ture ba­bies may be born with un­der­de­vel­oped lungs, which are more sus­cep­ti­ble to res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tions that, in turn, can dam­age the lung tis­sue, ac­cord­ing to Na­tion­al Jew­ish Health hos­pi­tal. Fac­tors that af­fect the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the lungs can in­crease a per­son's risk of asth­ma, NJH says on its Web site.

Be­cause most of the chil­dren in the study were from high-in­come coun­tries, ad­di­tion­al re­search is need­ed in low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries, the re­searchers said.

The study al­so can­not rule out the pos­si­bil­i­ty that chil­dren born pre­ma­ture­ly may share oth­er fac­tors that were not ac­count­ed for in the study and that con­tribute to the risk of wheez­ing dis­or­ders.

The study was con­duct­ed by re­searchers at Maas­tricht Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­tre in the Nether­lands and The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh in the Unit­ed King­dom.

(Live­Science.com)

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