Pregnant women who exercise may reduce their child's risk of developing asthma later in life, according to a new study.
Researchers from Finland studied 963 mother-infant pairs to determine how physical activity during pregnancy can affect a child's risk of asthma when they are between the ages of five to seven. The data was obtained from the Kuopio University Hospital.
Findings from the study showed that mothers who exercised at least three times a week had children who were 50% less likely to develop asthma. In comparison, 34% of the children of pregnant mothers who only exercised once a week developed asthma.
Of all exercises, the study found walking (34%) to be the most common form. Other exercises mentioned include jogging (32%), muscle strengthening (29%) group exercise classes (22%), swimming (8%), and riding (4%).
How Can Exercise During Pregnancy Reduce a Child's Risk of Asthma?
The study is not the first to recommend exercise among pregnant women. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also advises pregnant mothers to get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every week. This is to help reduce excessive weight gain, gestational diabetes, and postpartum depression. The increased blood flow also supports lung, heart, and cognitive development in the fetus, a separate study found.
Read Also: Consuming Caffeine Products During Pregnancy Will Not Cause ADHD in Children, a New Study Finds
What Causes Asthma in Children?
The exact cause of asthma is unknown. There is also no cure at present. However, the lung condition is believed to affect nearly 25 million people in the US alone, including 4.7 million children under 18.
There are many factors associated with the development of asthma. Apart from maternal physical activity during pregnancy, asthma was also prevalent among children whose mothers (19%) and fathers (22%) had the lung condition. It was also 47% more common in children in mothers who were overweight during pregnancy and 25% more likely among children whose mothers took oral antibiotics during pregnancy, the Finland study noted.
Children can also develop asthma in adulthood due to socioeconomic factors, such as air pollution, smoking, and weight.
That said, health experts said the study's results are "exciting," adding that it could give pregnant women a way to potentially prevent asthma in their children.
"Once the child has asthma, there's so many medications out there and so many new biological injections that we can give to help treat the disease," Stephen Kimura, a board-certified allergist, told National Geographic. "So if we can identify the high-risk individuals and alter maternal care and decrease asthma, that would be great."
