Study on the relationship between intrapartum group B streptococcus prophylaxis and food allergy in children

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the associations between intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis of group B streptococcus (GBS) in pregnant women and the risk of food allergy in Chinese children DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study of 2,909 mother-child pairs. SETTING: Taixing People's Hospital in Eastern China. PARTICIPANTS: Term infants born 2018–2019, followed longitudinally from birth to 3 years. EXPOSURES: The GBS-IAP was defined as therapy with intravenous penicillin G or ampicillin or cefazolin ≥4 h prior to delivery to the mother. Reference infants were defined as born without or with other intrapartum antibiotic exposure. METHODS: To investigate the incidence information of food allergy in children aged 18 months and three years old. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and log-rank tests were used to evaluate the cumulative incidence in the group with GBS-IAP and the group without GBS-IAP. Cox proportional hazards models were conducted to determine the univariate and multivariate association between maternal GBS-IAP and incident food allergy after various covariates were adjusted. RESULTS: The cumulative incidence of food allergy in the group with GBS-IAP was higher than that in the group without GBS-IAP in children under 18 months old (8.1% vs. 4.5%, P = 0.005, log-rank test), but no significant differences were observed in children under three years old (9.2% vs. 7.0%, P = 0.146, log-rank test). The univariate cox proportional hazards model in children under 18 months old revealed that children in the GBS-IAP group had faster food allergy development when compared with children in the group without GBS-IAP (HR.: 1.887,95% CI: 1.207–2.950, P = 0.005), so was the multivariate model (HR.: 1.906,95% CI: 1.158–3.137, P = 0.011). However, both univariate (HR: 1.343, 95% CI: 0.891∼2.026, P = 0.159) and multivariate (HR: 1.253, 95%CI: 0.796∼1.972, P = 0.329) cox proportional hazards model in children under three years old showed no significant differences between children in the group with GBS-IAP and group without GBS-IAP. CONCLUSION: Intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis of group B streptococcus may increase the cumulative incidence and risk of food allergy in children under 18 months old, but it had no significant effect on children under three years old.