Antibiotics in infancy tied to asthma
By Nathan Seppa
Children given multiple doses of antibiotics before their first birthdays have a heightened risk of asthma later, a study shows.
Researchers analyzed the medical records of 13,116 children born in Manitoba in 1995. Roughly 6 percent of the group developed asthma by age 7.
Kids getting more than four courses of antibiotics during the first year of life were 1.5 times as likely to develop asthma by age 7 as kids getting no such drugs, the researchers report in the June Chest.