Maternal exercise during pregnancy may protect child against asthma

A child’s risk of asthma can be reduced by almost half if the mother engages in active physical exercise at least three times a week during pregnancy, compared to the child whose mother is less active, according to a new study from the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Kuopio University Hospital (KUH) and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

The researchers used data from nearly 1,000 mother-child pairs in the Kuopio Birth Cohort study, KuBiCo, followed from pregnancy until age 7.

Maternal exercise during pregnancy is known to have positive effects on the health of both mother and child. In a previous study, maternal exercise during pregnancy was also associated with enhanced newborn lung function.

“This is the first time we have observed an association between maternal exercise and the development of childhood asthma,” says doctoral student Emma-Reetta Musakka, BM, MSc, of the University of Eastern Finland.

Maternal exercise and childhood asthma risk are associated with many of the same health, lifestyle, and environmental factors, such as maternal weight, stress, illness, family eating habits. exercise, nutrition and, for example, dog ownership.

This study, published in Medicalexplained the potential impact of these and several other similar factors on outcomes, but they did not explain the protective association of maternal exercise with child asthma risk.

“Our results strongly suggest that maternal exercise during pregnancy has an independent positive effect on the fetus and subsequent health of the child,” says Musakka.

Maternal exercise is known to affect fetal activity and fetal respiratory movements, which support lung development.

“We do not yet know why maternal exercise manifests itself in a reduced risk of asthma in the child, but it is possible that it promotes fetal lung maturation,” notes Musakka.

“Until today, avoiding cigarette smoke during pregnancy has been one of the only effective ways to reduce a child’s risk of asthma. So it’s fascinating to find that moderate exercise mother during pregnancy may have an equally powerful protective effect on a child’s asthma risk as if one parent has stopped smoking,” says Dr. Pirkka Kirjavainen, lead researcher of the study.

The results did not indicate that increasing the amount of exercise beyond three times per week would be associated with an even lower risk of asthma. However, further research into the role of exercise quantity and intensity during pregnancy in asthma prevention is needed. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that pregnant women get about 2.5 hours of moderate exercise per week.

“The results are very promising in terms of asthma prevention. It is very encouraging that by doing reasonable amounts of exercise, mothers can significantly influence not only their own health, but also that of their children. child,” says Kirjavainen.