Exposure to indoor cleaning products during pregnancy ups child’s risk of asthma

Exposure to indoor cleaning products before or around conception and pregnancy seems to worsen the risk of childhood asthma in the offspring, a recent study has found.

The study included 3,318 offspring, of whom 1,307 had mothers who kept a job for ≥6 months that involved exposure to indoor cleaning agents. The mothers of the remaining 2,011 offspring had jobs that entailed no such exposure.

For 150 exposed offspring, maternal exposure occurred long before conception, stopping a mean of 7.8 years before pregnancy. In 610 offspring (46.7 percent), such exposure started before pregnancy and persisted until conception. In 77 offspring (5.9 percent), exposure started around the time of conception and pregnancy.

Mixed-effects logistic regression found that exposure to indoor cleaning agents that started before pregnancy but persisted until conception significantly increased the risk of offspring asthma before 10 years of age with (odds ratio [OR], 1.72, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.09–2.69) or without (OR, 1.50, 95 percent CI, 1.00–2.24) nasal allergies.

Similarly, such exposure that began before and persisted until pregnancy aggravated the likelihood of offspring wheezing and/or asthma before age 10 years (OR, 1.64, 95 percent CI, 1.14–2.37). Exposure that occurred around the time of conception had a similar effect (OR, 2.23, 95 percent CI, 1.02–4.89).

Notably, maternal exposures that occurred long before conception or only after birth did not affect the risk of asthma, wheezing, or nasal allergies in the offspring.