Research suggests that pregnant women who are exposed to high pollen counts in the later stages of their pregnancy may be increasing their baby’s risk of developing serious asthma.
High pollen levels are most likely from spring to autumn when grass, trees and flowers are in full bloom. Swedish researchers examining more than 110,000 pregnancies found a link between high pollen counts and infants taken to hospital because of a severe asthma attack.
Their findings, published in the journal Allergy, Asthma and Clinical Immunology, concluded that there is a 35% increased risk of a baby being hospitalised because of asthma when the mother is exposed to a high pollen count in the last three months of her pregnancy.
The research team had compared Stockholm pollen levels with the medical records of pregnant women, assessing the pollen count during the last weeks of pregnancy and in the baby’s first 12 weeks of life. Factors such as the gender, season of birth and whether the mothers smoked or not were taken into consideration when analysing the results.
The team, from the University of Umea, put forward several reasons why a high pollen count can affect the development of an unborn child’s immune system. One is that mothers who already have allergies may be reacting to the high pollen count in such a severe way that it alters the intrauterine environment and causes complications for their baby.
Another theory is that mothers who are sensitive to pollen are already at risk of pregnancy complications during those high pollen periods, which might play a part in exacerbating asthma in the unborn child.
The study concluded that more research is needed to explore how a high pollen count might be affecting the immune system of unborn children and exposing them to the risk of severe respiratory illnesses such as asthma.
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