Late Preterm Birth and Risk of Developing Asthma

Objective To evaluate the association between gestational age at birth (late preterm vs term) and risk for physician-diagnosed asthma. Study design We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988-1994) linked natality files. The study included children age 2-83 months from singleton births, born late preterm (n = 537) or term (n = 5650). Using survival analysis, we modeled time to diagnosis of asthma; children with no asthma diagnosis were censored at the age of their survey interview. We used Cox proportional hazard regression to estimate hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for gestational age and asthma risk, adjusting for maternal age, maternal education, parental history of asthma/hay fever, maternal smoking history during pregnancy, race/ethnicity, and sex of the child. Results Adjusted analysis showed that physician-diagnosed asthma was modestly associated with late preterm birth (hazard ratio, 1.3; 95% confidence interval, 0.8-2.0), but this association was not statistically significant (P=.30). Conclusions Our study found that late preterm birth was not associated with a diagnosis of asthma in early childhood. (J Pediatr 2010; 157: 74-8).