Maternal antibiotic use and infections during pregnancy and offspring asthma: the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study and a nationwide register cohort

Maternal antibiotic use during pregnancy has been linked to asthma risk in children, but the role of underlying infections remains unclear. We investigated the association of maternal antibiotic use and infections during pregnancy with offspring risk of asthma. We used two population-based cohorts: the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) (n = 53 417) and a register-based cohort (n = 417 548). Asthma was defined based on dispensed asthma medications at 7 and 13 years from the Norwegian Prescription Database. Self-reported information on antibiotic use and infections during pregnancy was available in MoBa, while registrations of dispensed prescriptions were used to classify use of antibiotics in the register-based cohort. Maternal antibiotic use during pregnancy was associated with asthma at 7 in both cohorts (adjusted risk ratio (aRR) 1.23, 95% CI 1.11–1.37 in MoBa and 1.21, 1.16–1.25 in the register cohort) and asthma at 13 in the register cohort (1.13, 1.03–1.23) after adjusting for maternal characteristics. In MoBa, the estimate was attenuated after adjusting for infections during pregnancy. Maternal lower and upper respiratory tract infections (aRR 1.30, 95% CI 1.07–1.57 and 1.19, 1.09–1.30, respectively) and urinary tract infections (1.26, 1.11–1.42) showed associations with asthma at 7. Register cohort also showed an increased risk of asthma in relation to maternal antibiotics before and after pregnancy. Our findings suggest that both maternal antibiotics and infections during pregnancy have a role in the risk of offspring asthma. However, results from the register cohort suggest that the effect of antibiotics may reflect the shared underlying susceptibility. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10654-022-00897-y.