Pregnancy: Exercise protects the child from asthma

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.

Working up a little sweat every day is important - even for pregnant women. You are not only doing something good for yourself, but also for your unborn children. Among other things, this reduces the likelihood that they will have particularly poorly performing lungs after birth. And that can affect later life.

Dr. Hrefna Katrin Gudmundsdottir and her colleagues from the University of Oslo presented the results of a corresponding study at the International Congress of the European Respiratory Society.

"In our study we found that babies from inactive mothers were more often in the group with the lowest lung function than babies from active mothers," says the scientist.

Active mother, strong child's lungs?

Gudmundsdottir and her team are evaluating the data from 814 healthy newborns and their mothers. It showed that 8.6 percent of the children of inactive mothers belonged to the group of babies with the worst lung function. There were not even half as many of the babies of active mothers (4.2 percent).

As part of the study, the women in the 18th and 34th week of pregnancy used questionnaires to provide information about their health, their lifestyle, socio-economic factors and their diet. Among other things, they stated how often, how long and with what intensity they exercised. Based on the answers, the researchers classified them as inactive, somewhat active, or very active.

Lung function test at three months

Three months after the birth of the children, the researchers tested their lung function using breathing masks while the children were awake and relaxed. Using this, the scientists determined the so-called flow-volume curve, which describes the respiratory flow and volume of the air inhaled and exhaled. It is given with the value tPTEF / tE.

In their analyzes, the researchers took into account the mother's age, her education, the body mass index (BMI) before pregnancy, nicotine consumption during pregnancy, whether she had given birth before, and asthma and other allergic diseases in both parents. At first glance, the results of the measurements do not seem to differ significantly. They ranged between an average of 0.387 tPTEF / tE for the children of inactive mothers and 0.394 tPTEF / tE for the babies of more sporty mothers.

Increased risk of asthma

But previous studies by the researchers have already revealed that children whose lung function was in the lower 50 percent of the comparison group in the first few months after birth had more asthma by the age of ten, reported Gudmundsdottir.

In particular, values ​​of less than 0.25 tPTEF / tE seem to indicate weaker lung function - and this was more common, especially in children of inactive mothers.

"We also hope to investigate connections between the physical activity of the mother and asthma, allergies and other non-communicable diseases in the future," said Gudmundsdottir. To this end, the researchers want to accompany the children in the study in their further development.

Not smoking is more important than exercise

As crucial as the mothers' physical activity has on the unborn child, another factor is even more crucial with regard to lung health, the researchers emphasize: “The most important thing mothers can do for their own health and that of their babies is before, during and not to smoke or use any other tobacco products after pregnancy. ”A smoke-free home has the greatest impact on lung function and health in childhood and later in life.

Tags:  anatomy menshealth prevention