Prenatal and early life home environment exposure in relation to preschool children's asthma, allergic rhinitis and eczema in Taiyuan, China

Abstract

Prenatal and early life home environment might be related to children's asthma or allergic diseases later in life. A cross-sectional epidemiological study was designed and a questionnaire survey was performed in 3700 preschool children in urban areas in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China. Questions on children's asthma and allergic diseases from the International Study on Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) were integrated with questions on home environment from the Swedish Dampness in Buildings and Health (DBH) study, appropriately modified for Chinese life habits. By multivariate regression analyses controlling for age, gender, heredity, location in urban/suburban or rural areas, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and breastfeeding, we found that home new furniture (HNF) before birth (referring to 1 year before pregnancy and during pregnancy) was positively associated with wheezing ever (odds ratio(OR) 1.23 with 95% CI of 1.03-1.48) and wheezing last 12 months (1.24,1.00-1.54), allergic rhinitis (AR) (1.26,1.06-1.51), and eczema (1.42,1.01-1.99). HNF between 0-1 years old was also positively associated with wheezing last 12 months. Home new decoration (HND) during 0-1 years old was positively associated with AR symptoms and eczema symptoms, more in the last 12 months. Stronger positive associations were found for signs of home mold and dampness with almost all children's asthmatic and allergic symptoms (OR ranging from 1.23-1.85, P<0.05). By mutual adjustment between HNF before children's birth and home mold or dampness, all the significance remained unchanged. Prenatal HNF and home mold or dampness was independently associated with children's asthmatic and allergic diseases later in life. © 2013 The Author(s).