Women with asthma are at a higher risk of pregnancy loss, suggests a new study from Denmark published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.¹ Women with uncontrolled asthma and those with early-onset asthma especially were more at risk.

This study examined data of 1,309,786 women from the national health registers to investigate the association of asthma in reproductive age women with pregnancy loss. Of these, 128,553 women had asthma and a total of 1,297,233 women without asthma acted as the control group. The ages of the participants varied between 6 and 45 years and they had a minimum of two prescriptions of anti-asthma drugs from 1977 to 2019.

Analysis of data revealed that women with asthma were more likely to have one pregnancy loss with an adjusted odds ratio of 1.05; the aOR for two pregnancy losses was 1.09, while the aOR for 3 or more pregnancy losses was 1.18. The aOR for recurrent pregnancy losses was 1.19.

The association was also examined for the age of onset of asthma: early-onset (6-15 years), adult-onset (16-39 years) and late-onset (40-45 years) asthma. The OR for ≥3 pregnancy losses was 1.47 among women with early-onset asthma i.e., onset between age 6 and 15 years. Also, among women with uncontrolled asthma, the OR for ≥3 pregnancy losses was 1.60 compared to women with controlled asthma.

This study has shown an association between pregnancy losses and asthma. The association was particularly noted for early-onset asthma and uncontrolled asthma. It highlights the need for well-controlled asthma during pregnancy and closely monitoring women with asthma for the risk of pregnancy loss.

Reference

1. Tidemandsen C, et al. Asthma is associated with pregnancy loss and recurrent pregnancy loss: A nationwide cohort study. J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract. 2022 May 25;S2213-2198(22)00499-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jaip.2022.04.044.