Older parental age at delivery may increase risk for allergies in children

Key takeaways:

• If either parent was aged 25 years or older at delivery, the risk for allergic diseases in children increased.
• Breastfeeding for more than 6 months attenuated the risk for all childhood allergic diseases.

Older parental age at delivery increased the risk for certain childhood allergic diseases in offspring, according to study results.

“These findings are significant given the rising age of parents and increasing prevalence of childhood allergic diseases,” Ye Zhang, MS, researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine School of Public Health, Shanghai, China, and colleagues wrote.

A global concern

Childhood allergic diseases are a global concern, but limited research exists examining the association between the effects of parental age at delivery as a risk factor, according to the study.

For this reason, Zhang and colleagues assessed the potential association between separate and combined parental age at delivery and childhood allergic diseases among a cohort of 15,976 children from China included in the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood questionnaire.

Researchers used multivariate logistic regression models to examine the association of parental age and exclusive breastfeeding with allergic diseases. They additionally assessed whether adequate breastfeeding could modify the potential association.

Allergy risk

According to study results, the most common childhood allergic diseases included eczema (35.5%), allergic rhinitis (21.2%), urticaria (15.6%), asthma (14.2%), food allergy (8.7%) and drug allergy (3.9%).

Results showed an increased risk for childhood allergic diseases among children born to a parent who was aged 25 years or older at delivery; however, researchers observed a stronger effect with paternal age and risk for allergic disease.

Moreover, the highest risk for childhood allergic diseases occurred when both parents were aged 25 years or older at delivery (OR range, 1.266-1.541; P < .05 for all, except drug allergy).

Of note, an inverse association was found between breastfeeding for longer than 6 months and risk for all allergic diseases, as well as attenuated “the risk caused by parental age 25 years or older,” according to the researchers.