A Swedish study shows that pregnant women who are obese or overweight have an increased risk of giving birth to a baby with asthma. With more than one-third of women obese, and with asthma the most common childhood illness, this is an alarming link. Here is a by-the-numbers look at obesity in pregnancy, asthma in children and the connections between them.
* 7 million: The number of children in the United States who have asthma. That figure represents 9.4 percent of the population of children ages 5-17. This number also shows an increase in the incidence of pediatric and adolescent asthma. In 2007, 5.6 million children had asthma.
* First: Asthma is the most common chronic childhood illness in the United States.
* Third: Asthma is the third most common reason U.S. children younger than 15 are hospitalized.
* 17 million: The number of physician visits, annually, in which childhood asthma is the primary diagnosis.
* Almost 13 million: The cumulative number of school days missed annually for asthma-related issues.
* 61 percent: The portion of children, born to obese mothers, who developed asthma in their formative years. These figures come from a study conducted by health researchers at Umea University in Sweden, the Murdock Children's Research Institute and the University of Melbourne in Australia. It was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, a publication of AAAAI (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology).
* 35 or more: The Body Mass Index (BMI) used by Swedish researchers to define obesity.
* 30 or greater: The BMI figure at which the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) considers obese. This number is the same for men and women. Body Mass Index is a number determined using a ratio of height to weight.
* 5: The difference in BMI used by the Swedish study and U.S. obesity calculations. It should be noted that had the Swedish study used the lower U.S. obesity BMI, their findings might have showed an even higher instance of asthma from obese mothers.
* 41 percent: The portion of overweight mothers who gave birth to babies who developed asthma.
* 25-29.9: The BMI that the NHLBI considers to be overweight.
* 18 percent: The portion of slightly overweight women who gave birth to children with asthma. Normal weight is figured by a BMI less than 25.
* 8-10 years old: The age by which asthma occurred in the children studied.
* 129,000: The number of mothers studied in Sweden. From these women, 189,000 children were studied to establish the figures.
* 64.1 percent: The number of women older than 20 who are overweight or obese (with a BMI of 25 or more).
* 35.5 percent: The number of women who are obese (BMI of 30 or greater).
Findings showed that maternal obesity weakened an infant's resistance to allergies and asthma. Maternal obesity also predisposed children to juvenile obesity.
Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben writes from 23 years parenting four children and 25 years teaching K-8, special needs, homeschool and adult education.
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