Antenatal Steroid Therapy for Fetal Lung Maturation and the Subsequent Risk of Childhood Asthma A Longitudinal Analysis.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Pregnancy Volume 2010, Article ID 789748, 9 pages doi:10.1155/2010/789748 Research Article Antenatal Steroid Therapy for Fetal Lung Maturation and the Subsequent Risk of Childhood Asthma: A Longitudinal Analysis Jason D. Pole,1, 2, 3 Cameron A. Mustard,1 Teresa To,1, 3 Joseph Beyene,1, 3, 4 and Alexander C. Allen5 1 Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5T 3M7 2 Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1V2 3 Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1X8 4 Department of Clinical Epidemiology Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada L8N 3Z5 5 Perinatal Epidemiology Research Unit, Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pediatrics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3K 6R8 Correspondence should be addressed to Jason D. Pole, j.pole@utoronto.ca Received 26 January 2010; Accepted 6 April 2010 Academic Editor: Sam Mesiano Copyright © 2010 Jason D. Pole et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that fetal exposure to corticosteroids in the antenatal period is an independent risk factor for the development of asthma in early childhood with little or no effect in later childhood. A population-based cohort study of all pregnant women who resided in Nova Scotia, Canada, and gave birth to a singleton fetus between 1989 and 1998 was undertaken. After a priori specified exclusions, 80,448 infants were available for analysis. Using linked health care utilization