NEW YORK, 8 October 2003 — Schoolchildren suffer more frequently from allergies and asthma if they were treated with antibiotics as babies, according to a US study.
If children were given antibiotics at least once in their first six months of life, their chances of having allergies by the time they reached school age increased 1.5 times and rose by 2.5 times for asthma, according to research presented last Tuesday by Dr. Christine Cole Johnson of Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital at the annual conference of the European Respiratory Society in Vienna.
The risks rose even more for babies breast-fed for more than four months by mothers with allergies or asthma, according to the study, which observed 448 children from birth to 7 years of age. Those children’s risk was three times higher than for children who had not taken antibiotics before six months of age.
Johnson’s team of researchers found only a lowering of allergy or asthma risk if children had lived with at least two house pets through their first year of life, the researchers found.
The scientists said they believed the reason for their findings was that antibiotics had a stronger effect on the stomach and intestinal tract in a child’s first months and have a lasting effect on the immune system of these children.
Johnson called for no general prescribing of antibiotics for babies, adding that antibiotics in the past have often been prescribed without compelling reasons.
Health officials have blamed the resistance of some strains of dangerous bacteria on the over-prescription of antibiotics.
