Maternal Dietary Antioxidant Intake in Pregnancy and Childhood Respiratory and Atopic Outcomes: Birth Cohort Study

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To investigate the associations between maternal intake of dietary antioxidants in pregnancy and childhood respiratory and atopic outcomes (including lung function) and to explore whether these associations were modified by maternal smoking during pregnancy and common maternal antioxidant gene polymorphisms.The study was focused on 8915 mother-child pairs who participated in a population-based birth cohort in Avon, United Kingdom.Researchers in this study analyzed associations between maternal intake of fruits, vegetables, vitamins C and E, carotene, zinc, and selenium in pregnancy and current doctor-diagnosed asthma, atopy, and lung function in 8915 children at age 7 to 9 years. To explore potential interaction from environmental exposures, results were stratified for maternal smoking history and by maternal antioxidant intake during pregnancy.After controlling for confounders, positive associations were observed between maternal intake of zinc and childhood forced expiratory volume at 1 second and forced vital capacity with evidence of a dose-response relationship. Post hoc analyses of the associations between maternal zinc intake and childhood forced expiratory volume at 1 second and forced vital capacity at 15 years (n = 3669) showed similar findings to those observed at 8 years. In contrast to these findings, there was no evidence that maternal intake of dietary antioxidants is associated with a risk of childhood asthma or atopy.Researchers in this study found that higher maternal intake of zinc during pregnancy may be associated with better lung function in their children.This study is the first to demonstrate an association between maternal zinc intake during pregnancy and respiratory outcomes in their offspring. Despite the findings that zinc is associated with decreased lung function values, there was no association between childhood asthma or atopy. This suggests that early intervention during pregnancy to increase antioxidant intake would be unlikely to succeed as a prevention strategy for these conditions.