Maternal Sex Hormones in Early Pregnancy and Asthma Among Offspring: a Case-control Study

Background: Sex hormones may be associated with the risk of onset of asthma.

Objective: To study the association between maternal sex hormone concentrations during early pregnancy and the risk of asthma among offspring.

Methods: A case-control study of 129 asthmatic children and 125 control children 5 to 6 years of age. Maternal sera in early pregnancy were obtained from the Finnish Maternal Cohort serum bank.

Results: The means of serum progesterone and estradiol and free estradiol in mothers of asthmatic and control children were 81.0 and 82.8 nmol/L (P =.60), 7.87 nmol/L and 7.65 nmol/L (P =.99), and 149.5 pmol/L and 148.0 pmol/L (P =.95), respectively. There were also no differences in the mean concentrations of maternal sex hormones according to the presence of allergic rhinitis or atopic eczema among the children.

Conclusions: The current results do not support an association between maternal sex hormone concentrations during early pregnancy and onset of allergic disease in early childhood.