Obesity Before Pregnancy May Increase Children’s Asthma Risk
Adolescent mothers who were overweight or obese when they become pregnant may increase the risk for asthma symptoms, according to a new study.
These include nearly 7,000 adolescents aged 15 and 16 who were born in northern Finland between July 1985 and June 1986. The researchers also looked at health information gathered from the teen mothers, including height and weight before pregnancy.
About 10 percent of adolescents experience wheezing, about 20 percent had been wheezing at some point, 6 percent had asthma and 10 percent suffer from asthma at some point After taking into account a number of other factors. The researchers found that maternal weight before becoming pregnant has a strong effect on the adolescent wheeze / asthma risk.
Adolescent are 20 to 30 percent more likely to wheeze / have a history of wheezing, or have asthma or a history of asthma, if their mother seriously overweight or obese before pregnancy.
Every kilogram of excess (1 kg = 2.2 lbs) weight in the mother in pregnancy is associated with 2.7 to 3.5 percent increased risk of wheezing and asthma among adolescents, researcher from Imperial College London is calculated.
And after other factors that contribute, the heaviest adolescents with mothers had a 47 percent increased risk of severe wheeze.
The study appears online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Hormonal and metabolic effects of excess weight during pregnancy can interfere with normal fetal development, including the lungs, the researchers suggest.
