Asthma Risk Higher For Infants Who Swim Indoors

Poor ventilation, overchlorination can damage developing lungs, study says.

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
Monday, June 4, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

MONDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- If taking your infant to swim class seems like a fun way of bonding-with-baby, you might want to think twice about the idea.

That's because a new European study has found that infants who were regularly exposed to the chlorinated air of indoor swimming pools were more at risk for developing asthma than were infants who didn't swim indoors.

"Our data suggest that infant swimming practice in chlorinated indoor swimming pools is associated with airway changes that, along with other factors, seem to predispose children to the development of asthma and recurrent bronchitis," wrote the Belgian researchers. They also found the effect was stronger for babies who swam indoors and were also exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.

The findings appear in the June issue of Pediatrics.

The researchers surveyed 341 schoolchildren from Brussels and their parents. At the time the study began, the youngsters were between the ages of 10 and 13. The children and their parents were asked about their asthma status, other environmental exposures, and whether or not they had gone to indoor swimming pools as infants.

Forty-three children from that group had regularly been to indoor swimming pools in their infancy, according to the study. The children had to have had at least 2.5 cumulative hours on indoor pool exposure to be included in this smaller group.

Blood samples were taken from the children to measure markers of lung health, and average air sample tests were obtained from the pools the youngsters visited.

The researchers found that children who went swimming indoors as infants were 50 percent more likely to report wheezing, almost four times as likely to experience chest tightness, and had more than double the risk of experiencing shortness of breath, compared to the children who hadn't been regular swimmers as infants.

The study also found that exposure to passive smoke alone didn't seem to increase a child's risk of asthma, but when coupled with indoor swimming, the risk of developing lung problems was even higher.