BEING born prematurely can triple a baby's risk of developing childhood asthma, new research by Scots scientists has shown.
The link between pre-term birth and asthma, or wheezing conditions, is higher than was previously thought, a study suggests.
Asthma is already the most common chronic disease in childhood, affecting around 8% of offspring born after a normal-length pregnancy.
With increasing numbers of babies surviving premature birth, childhood asthma is set to become a significant health problem, say scientists.
An estimated 11% of children are now born pre-term.
The research showed average asthma rates rose to 14% in babies born prematurely, defined as at least three weeks early.
Those born more than three weeks before the usual 40-week term were almost 50% more likely than full-term babies to develop asthma. And babies born more than two months early were three times more at risk.
The findings, published in the online journal Public Library of Science Medicine, also suggest that children born prematurely do not outgrow their vulnerability to asthma. The risk of developing asthmatic symptoms was the same for both pre-school and school-age children.
Study leader Dr Jasper Been, from Edinburgh University's Centre for Population Health Sciences, said: "Doctors and parents need to be aware of the increased risks of asthma in premature babies, in order to make early diagnosis and intervention possible.
"By changing the way we monitor and treat children born pre-term, we hope to decrease the future risks of serious breathing problems."
The researchers studied data on around 1.5 million children pooled from 30 studies.
Many premature babies experience breathing problems because their lungs are immature. Previous research has suggested this can lead to asthma, but whether or not it affects long-term risk is unclear.
Dr Samantha Walker, executive director of research at Asthma UK, said: "We know that uncontrolled asthma in pregnant women, amongst other things, can increase the risk of premature birth, which reinforces the need for good asthma management during pregnancy."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article