Asthma has become the most frequent disease in childhood. Cases of asthma in children have increased alarmingly in recent decades, which is why scientists look for causes that could be related to the disease, even during the gestation of the baby.
Some studies have already found that certain drugs such as antacids, antibiotics and acetaminophen may be linked to an increased predisposition to asthma in childhood.
On the other hand, stress is one of the most common conditions in our current society, which when it is suffered by a pregnant woman also affects the baby in gestation.
A recently released study by the Harvard Medical School in Boston (United States) is the first to directly link both diseases.
Investigators consider stress as a social pollutant which influences the body in a similar way to physical contaminants such as allergens predisposing the baby to suffer from childhood asthma.
Based on this premise, they found that women who are stressed during pregnancy could pass stress to the baby in the form of increased sensitivity to allergen exposure and possibly at a higher risk of asthma in the future.
Of course, maternal stress is not desirable for the fetus, since among other things it could alter the baby's immune system by increasing the risk of developing a respiratory disease in childhood.
Given that asthma and stress are two of the most common evils today, it would not be surprising if a relationship between the two was confirmed. Although apparently, drugs in pregnancy would also have a lot to do.
