Babies who slept on animal skins during their first 3 months of life were almost 40% less likely to have asthma by the time they were 10 years old, according to a population-based cohort study.
Sleeping on animal skins during infancy also was linked to lower odds of wheezing and hay fever, but did not seem to affect eczema or sensitivity to airborne antigens, Dr. Christina Tischer reported at the annual meeting of the European Respiratory Society.
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Babies who regularly slept on animal skins experienced fewer instances of wheezing, asthma, and hay fever than their peers.
"Early exposure to animal fur could be a simple, cheap, and effective way to resemble an environment with higher microbial exposure," said Dr. Tischer, a researcher at the German Institute for Environmental Health in Neuherberg, Germany. "It might follow similar protective mechanisms in relation to asthma and allergy as it has been observed in farm and rural environments."
The investigators studied 2,441 children in Germany who were up to 10 years old; parents answered a series of questionnaires about asthma and respiratory risk factors and health outcomes. In all, 55% of the children slept on animal skins or animal furs during their first 3 months of life, Dr. Tischer and her associates reported.
By age 10 years, children who slept on animal skins or animal fur as infants had a 25% lower odds of ever having wheezed (adjusted odds ratio, 0.75), a 38% lower odds of having been diagnosed with asthma (aOR, 0.62), and a 35% lower odds of having been diagnosed with hay fever (aOR, 0.65) compared with children who did not sleep on animals skins or furs as infants, the investigators reported.
Funding information for the study was not available. Dr. Tischer reported no conflicts of interest.