The association between maternal obesity and childhood asthma - an analysis based on swedish sib-pairs

• Background: The prevalence of both asthma and obesity have increased inwesternised countries over recent decades. It has been proposed that maternalobesity during pregnancy may induce a pro-infl ammatory intrauterineenvironment, which may increase the child’s risk of asthma and allergicdisease. Sib-pair analysis is a powerful technique for assessing the possibilitythat an exposure is causal for an outcome.Methods: The study population comprised all children born between 1998and 2005 in Stockholm (n = 99,830 born to 43,103 separate mothers)registered on the Swedish Medical Birth Registry. Maternal BMI was typicallymeasured typically at 8–10 weeks post conception. Use of asthma medications(either inhaled corticosteroids or montelukast) was recorded inthe Swedish Prescription Registry between July 2005 and February 2011. Conditional logistic regression models were used to assess the effect ofchanging maternal BMI on asthma medication use within sibling pairsmatched for age. Adjustment was made for maternal smoking during pregnancy,pregnancy complications, the child’s gender and other potentialconfounders.Results: There were 4,311 children with siblings with discordant asthmamedication use between 5 and 9 years of age. There was a trend for childrenborn to obese mothers (30–34.9 kg/m2) to have an elevated risk (aOR = 1.53,95% CI = 0.88–2.65) of asthma medication use when compared to theirmatched sibs. Children born to very obese mothers (BMI > 35 kg/m2) hada much greater risk of asthma than their siblings (aOR = 4.45, 95%CI = 1.79–11.05).Conclusion: Maternal early pregnancy obesity is associated with increasedrisk of asthma in the child. These associations are unlikely to be due to sharedgenetic or other familial risk factors for obesity and asthma, as the reportedassociations are based on a sib-pair analysis. Maternal obesity, or changes inlifestyle factors that lead to it, appear to cause an increase risk of childhoodasthma.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Medicinska och farmaceutiska grundvetenskaper (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Basic Medicine (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)