Pre-Natal Exercise May Protect a Child Against Asthma

New research provides even more reasons to motivate mothers to exercise during pregnancy. For the first time, scientists show a link between maternal exercise and nearly half the likelihood of a child developing asthma, when the pregnant mother exercises at least three times a week. This discovery was independent of other maternal and environmental factors. Researchers from the University of Eastern Finland observed this in a longitudinal study among 963 mother-infant pairs that looked at the children’s health data at 5 to 7 years of age.

“Our findings strongly suggest that maternal exercise during pregnancy has an independent positive effect on the fetus and on the later health of the child,” says lead study author Emma-Reetta Musakka, MSc, doctoral researcher at University of Eastern Finland. “We don’t yet know why maternal exercise manifests as a reduced risk of asthma in the child, but one possibility is that it supports fetal lung maturation.

Scientists theorize that prenatal physical activity promotes fetal lung development and strengthens the newborn’s lung function. “Until today, avoidance of cigarette smoke during pregnancy has been among the only effective ways to reduce a child’s risk of asthma. Thus, it is intriguing that moderate maternal exercise during pregnancy may have an equally strong protective effect on a child’s asthma risk as if one of the parents quits smoking,” says study author Pirkka Kirjavainen, PhD, senior researcher at University of Eastern Finland.

The study is published in Med (2024)