Babies with frequent colds at higher risk for asthma later, study

I tend to put my faith on research evidence. But there are days when I pray that science gets it wrong. Days like today, when I read that children who have frequent colds as infants develop a higher risk for asthma by age six.

Because my child falls into this group. I stopped counting how many times in the past two years that she’s gotten the cold virus. Every few months, she gets treated with antibiotics to control recurring ear infections due to fluid buildup. She’s a candidate for an ear tube, although I swear she can hear normally.

Now this. A study found that children with rhinoviral infections who developed wheeze before age one had a threefold risk for developing asthma later on. The Childhood Origins of Asthma (COAST) investigators followed a birth cohort of 287 children for eight years and found that as the children reached age three, more than 75% who developed a wheezing illness, regardless of the viral etiology, would go on to develop asthma by their kindergarten or first-grade years.

Totally bad news. Now tell me HOW my child can get out of that group and I will love COAST researchers till death.

[source:MedPage Today]

Tags: influenza, flu, colds, viruses, rhinovirus, diseases, illness, health, medicine, viral respiratory disease