Usage of household chemical products by pregnant women may increase the risk of wheezing in children.
![Cleaning products result in wheezing Cleaning products result in wheezing](https://drop.ndtv.com/images/story-noimage.png?q=50)
To see if prenatal exposure to these chemicals increases the risk of breathing problems, researchers asked the mothers of 7019 children about the chemicals they were exposed to during pregnancy, and how often their children wheezed from birth to the age of 3.5 years. The women completed surveys while pregnant, and periodically after the child was born. More than 6 per cent of the children showed signs of persistent wheezing. Children whose mothers used the most chemicals were more than twice as likely to persistently wheeze than those whose mothers used the least chemicals.
Experts suspect that chemicals may affect infants' breathing by irritating their airways and lungs. Mothers who use a lot of chemicals during pregnancy will likely do the same thing once the babies are born, so it's difficult to say whether a baby's wheezing comes from exposures before or after birth.
January 2005
DoctorNDTV is the one stop site for all your health needs providing the most credible health information, health news and tips with expert advice on healthy living, diet plans, informative videos etc. You can get the most relevant and accurate info you need about health problems like diabetes, cancer, pregnancy, HIV and AIDS, weight loss and many other lifestyle diseases. We have a panel of over 350 experts who help us develop content by giving their valuable inputs and bringing to us the latest in the world of healthcare.