Abstract
According to the “fetal origin of disease” hypothesis, air pollution exposure in pregnancy may play an important role in stimulating the early programming of asthma and allergies. However, previous studies reported inconsistent findings. The aim of this meta-analysis was to provide higher grade evidence and quantitatively analyze the link between prenatal exposure to outdoor air pollutants and childhood asthma and wheezing. Databases (Web of Science and PubMed) were extensively searched for articles published from the start of the database to September 15, 2021. Either random-effect model or fixed-effect model was used to estimate the disease-specific relative risks (RR) with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to estimate the association. Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Score (NOS) was used to assess the quality of studies. This study finally included 13 cohort studies, and the findings showed that NO2 and SO2 exposure during entire pregnancy was significantly associated with wheezing (RR = 1.032, 95% CI: 1.000, 1.066) and asthma (RR = 1.114, 95% CI: 1.066, 1.164), respectively. Further analyses showed that PM2.5 were positively associated with asthma in the second (RR = 1.194, 95% CI: 1.143, 1.247) and third trimester (RR = 1.050, 95% CI: 1.007, 1.094), while NO2 (RR = 1.060, 95% CI: 1.021, 1.101) and SO2 (RR = 1.067, 95% CI: 1.013, 1.123) were shown positively associated with asthma only in the second trimester. The relationship between wheezing and outdoor air pollutants was not significant in any of the pregnancy subgroups. This study suggests that prenatal exposure of outdoor air pollution may increase the asthma and wheezing risk in the offspring and that the second trimester may be a sensitive period for air pollution exposure. But the interpretation of the causal association is hampered by limited number of studies on dose response.
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Acknowledgments
We also want to thank the Platform of Environmental Exposure and Life Health Research in Anhui Medical University.
Funding
This research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (No. 2108085MH304), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81872580), and the Student’s Platform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program of China (No.202110366005).
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Lei Hua: Conceptualization, Methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft. Liangliang Ju: Conceptualization, methodology, software, validation. Hanbing Xu: Validation, data curation, writing—original draft. Changlian Li: Validation, data curation, writing—original draft. Shu Sun: Data curation, writing—original draft. Qi Zhang: Data curation, writing—original draft. Jiyu Cao: Writing (review and editing), supervision. Rui Ding: Conceptualization, methodology, writing (review and editing), supervision, project administration, funding acquisition.
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Highlights
• Probed the effect of maternal air pollution exposure on asthma/wheezing in progeny.
• NO2 and SO2 were respectively associated with wheezing and asthma in offspring.
• Both NO2 and SO2 can increase the risk of asthma by 6% in second trimester exposure.
• PM2.5 exposure increased the risk of asthma in the second and third trimester.
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Hua, L., Ju, L., Xu, H. et al. Outdoor air pollution exposure and the risk of asthma and wheezing in the offspring. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 14165–14189 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23094-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23094-6