Vital stages of growth and development in the womb are critical for fetuses, and it would now appear that they also control the chances a newborn will have of being allergies to various substances called allergens. Over the past few decades, the world has experienced a massive surge in allergy cases, which now affect millions of people around the world. This happened partially due to over-sanitizing children.
In the past, kids would just go out on play, scratch themselves and whatnot, and then go home and bandage their wound and that was it. This allowed their immune system to grow strong by fighting bacteria.
An additional advantage was that the immune system was exposed to various bacteria and microbes from an early age, which gave it ample time to learn how to tune its response to the invaders.
This is not happening anymore. Overzealous and concerned parents take their kids to see the doctor every time the tiniest scratch appears, not realizing that they are doing more harm than good.
The immune system becomes lazy if it is helped with antibiotics and creams all day long, and therefore tend to be over-zealous when it meets the tiniest threat, producing reactions called allergies.
Now, University of Southampton researchers have learned that kids may also be predisposed to having allergic reactions based on how they developed during vital stages while still inside their mothers' wombs.
According to the new data, it would appear that kids most at risk of developing allergies are those who developed fast in the early stages of development, but fell behind towards the end of the pregnancy.
They are at higher risk of developing both allergies and asthma, the researchers say. The new work was funded by the British Lung Foundation and the Medical Research Council (MRC) of the United Kingdom.
“Childhood allergies and asthma have become an epidemic in developed countries over the last 50 years. This research shows that in order to combat this, we need to understand more about how babies develop in the womb,” says Keith Godfrey.
The expert is a professor of epidemiology and human development at the University of Southampton, and also holds an appointment as the deputy director of the NIHR Nutrition Biomedical Research Unit at Southampton General Hospital.
“We already know that a baby’s growth in the womb has an important influence on susceptibility to obesity and heart disease in later life, but this research provides some of the most direct evidence yet that changes in how the baby’s immune system and lungs develops before birth can predispose them to some of the commonest childhood illnesses,” he concludes.
Details of the new investigation appear in the latest issue of the esteemed Journal Thorax,
AlphaGalileo reports.
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