Child Day Care and Childhood Asthma
Early Exposure to Other Infants Lowers the Risk of Persistent Asthma
Sep 3, 2009
Asthma is a respiratory disease and the most common chronic childhood disorder. Its prevalence was increased during the second half of the 20th century and today it affects about 12% of the children in the United States. It has been previously hypothesized and proved that early exposure to childhood infections reduces the risk of asthma. A new research shows that persistence of asthma to the age of 15 years is related to low number of children in the day care environment as a toddler.
The Increasing Frequency of Asthma Relates to Infant Exposure
During the past decades, along with the rise in asthma cases, the number of siblings has decreased, as well as the children's exposure. It was previously shown that infections in early age are reversely correlated with atopy, a general name for allergic hypersensitivity including asthma. The age of attending daycare affects the chances of asthma as well, probably due to less infectious disease the child is exposed to. Although preventing asthma in later ages, early exposure is associated with wheezing resulting from infectious disease in early ages.
A research headed by Matthew Gurka from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, VA unveiled the relation between daycare environment and asthma at the age of 15. The research, to be published in the Journal of Pediatrics, used data collected from almost one thousand children in the US tracking them from birth to the age of 15 to draw its conclusions.
Parameters Influencing the Risk of Asthma
The massive data collected shows that males are more in the habit of developing late onset asthma by 5th grade, persistent asthma increases as the income decreases and that a clean home reduces the risk of late onset of asthma as opposed to maternal asthma history. Interestingly, maternal age was found to affect the chance of asthma, as a child born to a mother giving birth at the age of 25 will have 40% more chance to develop asthma than one born at a maternal age of 30.
The time spent in the daycare center in both infancy and toddler age had no influence on future asthma risk, however, as the number of children in the center at the age of 16-36 months increased, the chances of asthma decreased in a significant manner.
The research provided a view on the risk factors that can be related to asthma. Although the number of children in the toddler's environment was found to influence onset of asthma later in life this finding has a more scientific value than practical use. The research shows that things a child is exposed to has a long lasting effect.
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