Preterm Birth Ups Risk of Asthma and Wheezing Disorder During Childhood

Premature infants are more likely to develop asthma and wheezing disorder during early childhood compared to full term babies, suggests a new finding.

The study was led by Jasper Been from the Maastricht University Medical Centre (Netherlands) in collaboration with researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Harvard Medical School.

The meta-analysis of 30 unique studies ,which  involved over 1.5 million kids, revealed that preterm infants (before 37 weeks of gestation) suffer a 46 percent increased risk of developing asthma and wheezing during early childhood. On the other hand, preemies (born in less than 32 weeks of gestation) were three times more vulnerable to developing the two conditions when compared to full term babies.

The researchers also estimate that if no preterm kids were born, the childhood wheezing disorder would have dropped by more than 3.1 percent.

When a baby is born three weeks before the gestation period, it is called a premature birth. Every year nearly 500,000 babies are affected due to preterm birth. It is also listed as the leading cause of long term neurological disabilities in kids by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Preterm birth exposes the infant to several health problems. Due to under developed lungs and brain they suffer from respiratory problems, chronic lung disease, anemia, jaundice and bleeding in the brain. Above all the risk of dying is high in these kids.

Preterm births are numerous and at the same time complex. Hence, such findings are important as most preemies survive today. The study reports that nearly 11 percent of newborns are preemies.

The researchers claim that this study does not support the previous findings that say that wheezing disorder gets less prominent with age in preterm babies. Rather they found that the association was same irrespective of the age group. The consequence tied to preterm birth exist throughout the life span.

"There is compelling evidence that preterm birth-particularly very preterm birth-increases the risk of asthma. Given the projected global increases in children surviving preterm births, research now needs to focus on understanding underlying mechanisms, and then to translate these insights into the development of preventive interventions," the authors conclude.

The authors say there is a need for further research as the children included in the study belonged to high income countries. Next, they want to focus on low and middle income countries.

The study was documented in the journal PLOS One.