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Can mother’s cleaning at work cause asthma in future children?

Published: October 17, 2021

Emerging research suggests that parents’ chemical and environmental exposures before conception might influence the health of their future offspring, even if such exposure started years before conception. Many future mothers are exposed to potent chemicals at work, but potential offspring health effects are hardly investigated.

A recent study by Tjalvin et al. published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI) addressed whether mother’s exposure to cleaning products and disinfectants at work was associated with asthma in her future offspring. The authors investigated 3318 offspring-mother pairs using data from two generations participating in the large population-based Respiratory Health in Northern Europe, Spain and Australia (RHINESSA) and Respiratory Health in Northern Europe (RHINE) studies. Adult offspring gave information about their childhood onset asthma, and the mothers had given information about all their employments throughout their working life. Jobs with exposure to cleaning agents and disinfectants included cleaners, nurses, other health care and personal care workers, cooks etc. Both mothers and children had given information about other factors that could be controlled for in the analyses.

The analyses revealed that if the mother had started working with cleaning products and disinfectants before conception of her child, or around conception and pregnancy, the child had an increased risk for childhood asthma and/or wheeze. If she had begun such work after the child was born, no increase in asthma risk was found. The results were consistent for different aspects of asthma, allergic and non-allergic, and wheezing; and in the group with never smoking mothers. Furthermore, the findings appeared to be stronger with higher versus medium maternal exposure to cleaning agents.

This hypothesis-generating study suggest that occupational exposure to cleaning products and disinfectants might induce changes in the mother that are transferred to future offspring and influence their health. Further research is needed of women in childbearing age using cleaning agents, and their children.

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI) is an official scientific journal of the AAAAI, and is the most-cited journal in the field of allergy and clinical immunology.

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