02 February 2010

Pregnancy Bug Linked to Childhood Asthma in Premature Babies



Complications during pregnancy may predispose prematurely born children to asthma, a comprehensive study reports. Taking a closer look at the unique correlation are pediatric physicians and pediatric allergists.

The problem is a result of chorioamnionitis, which is inflammation of the fetal membranes and amniotic fluid from a bacterial infection. It may be linked to over half of all preterm births, scientists noted in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Infections are proponent for countless problems, so parents should stay well informed about pediatric infectious diseases and the proper methods to prevention.

The infection may have spawned through the mothers' bloodstream or through the uterus from the her genital tract, says the head scientist at Kaiser Permanente Southern California's Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena. Pinpointing the cause of the pediatric infectious disease is still ambiguous.

The author emphasizes that, in animals, chorioamnionitis has been proven to induce lung and brain damage in their offspring. Also, specialists have discovered lung scarring among the infected infants who died after pregnancies.

Scientists analyzed electronic health records for all singleton children born at Kaiser's Southern California hospitals from 1991 to 2007. Out of 397,852 children, 28,869 of were born preterm.

Among children born full-term, chorioamnionitis was not correlated to an increased risk of acquiring asthma symptoms by the age of 8. However, those born prematurely faced considerable risk of being diagnosed with the condition. Scientists were able to pinpoint variations in asthma risk among different races of the preterm babies:

* Blacks faced double the risk of childhood asthma
* Hispanics a 70% increase risk
* Whites a 66% increase risk

Consulting a pediatric doctor can help families target potential risk factors.

The researchers noticed these differences even after considering other potential risk factors, like the whether the mother smoked or had asthma herself. Also intrigued by the findings are pediatric immunologists, who frequently see preterm patients.

Scientists conducting the study speculate that chorioamnionitis was not linked to asthma risks in full-term children because their mothers might not have had the infection for as long as those born prematurely. However, the team emphasized a lack of information regarding how early in the pregnancies women were diagnosed.

Diagnosing the condition is tricky, the head scientist adds, because symptoms like fever in the mother, discomfort in the uterus, foul-smelling amniotic fluid are not absolute correlations. In addition, some women never display such symptoms. The team is now trying to discover a marker in the mother's blood that would signify her symptoms as a cause of chorioamnionitis.

Expert pediatricians are considering the study to be highly significant in the field for children's immunology and disease prevention.

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