Probiotics during Pregnancy won't Help Prevent Asthma: Study

Though probiotics have many health benefits, a recent study shows that using them during pregnancy to help prevent asthma in infants is not one of them.

According to lead study author Meghan Azad, a Banting post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of medicine & Dentistry at the U of A, she and colleagues discovered that probiotics have no effect on the asthma rate.

Her team reviewed data from 20 clinical trials in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan that involved more than 4,800 children whose mothers either took probiotics during pregnancy or gave them to their children in the first year of life. For the participants, the rate of doctor-diagnosed asthma was 11.2 percent among infants who received probiotics and 10.2 percent among those that received a placebo.

"We haven't shown there's any harm in giving probiotics, but it can't really be advised as a strategy to prevent asthma," Azad said, via a press release.

"That doesn't mean probiotics aren't good for other reasons. There's really good evidence that probiotics are beneficial to infants who are born pre-term and suffer from a bowel condition. There's also good evidence that probiotics might prevent eczema."

Though the researchers did not find lower rates of asthma among probiotic use, they did note that those who received probiotics as infants or in utero had higher incidences of lower respiratory infections.

However, Azad adds that "more research is required to see if the two are indeed linked."

And whether or not there is a connection there, let's not forget that probiotics are beneficial for a number of other reasons, including the treatment of diarrhea, prevention and treatment of vaginal yeast infections and urinary tract infections, help with intestinal problems and other health issues.

Do you take a probiotic? And why?

More information regarding the study can be found via the British Medical Journal.