Studies have found that late preterm (LPT) infants have higher increased risk of asthma, however, none of them have explored possible confounders. This study by Voge et al. (Allergy and Asthma Proceedings, 2017) aimed to compare the frequency of asthma amongst former LPT infants and matched term infants to account for possible biases and determine whether asthma is indeed associated with LPT birth.
Population-Based Birth Cohort Study
282 LPT (34-38 6/7 weeks gestation) and term infants were compared to 297 term (37-40 6/7 weeks gestation) infants. Prior to assessing the data for confounding affects, LPT infants had a higher cumulative frequency of asthma compared to term infants (29.9% vs. 19.5%; p=0.01). However, after accounting for confounding factors related to asthma, this increase disappeared, and LPT birth was not associated with an increase in asthma rate. The investigators also looked at secondary outcomes such as other physician-diagnosed atopic conditions (eczema and/or atopic dermatitis and allergic rhinitis and/or hay fever). Maternal smoking during pregnancy was a major confounding factor that was responsible for the unadjusted association between LPT and asthma. The authors conclude that LPT is not independently associated with an increased risk of asthma or other atopic conditions. Most important, smoking during pregnancy is associated with asthma in children and therefore every effort should be made to address this modifiable risk for both preterm birth and asthma.
What accounts for the association between late preterm births and risk of asthma?
Please log in to access ObGFirst and the 2T US Atlas
OBG Project CME requires a modern web browser (Internet Explorer 10+, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge). Certain educational activities may require additional software to view multimedia, presentation, or printable versions of their content. These activities will be marked as such and will provide links to the required software. That software may be: Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft PowerPoint, Windows Media Player, or Real Networks Real One Player.
This educational activity may contain discussion of published and/or investigational uses of agents that are not indicated by the FDA. The planners of this activity do not recommend the use of any agent outside of the labeled indications.
The opinions expressed in the educational activity are those of the faculty and do not necessarily represent the views of the planners. Please refer to the official prescribing information for each product for discussion of approved indications, contraindications, and warnings.
Participants have an implied responsibility to use the newly acquired information to enhance patient outcomes and their own professional development. The information
presented in this activity is not meant to serve as a guideline for patient management. Any procedures, medications, or other courses of diagnosis or treatment discussed or suggested in this activity should not be used by clinicians without evaluation of their patient’s conditions and possible contraindications and/or dangers in use, review of any applicable manufacturer’s product information, and comparison with recommendations of other authorities.
Jointly provided by
