Good day care grime
Infants in day care may wheeze less later.
Children attending day care at an early age are more likely to breathe easy later, according to a new study of wheezing among children in Manchester, England.
Babies who began day care when they were 6 to 12 months old were about half as likely as those who did not attend day care to develop a “wheeze” by age 5, a possible indicator of asthma, scientists report in the September Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
“I think it strengthens the case that day care may be protective against asthma,” comments Anne Wright, an expert in epidemiology of childhood asthma at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.
But the findings are still too preliminary to serve as parenting advice, cautions study coauthor Angela Simpson, a respiratory physician at the University of Manchester. “We’re not trying to tell parents what to do with their children based on this,” she says.