Antibiotics bad for bub

CHILDREN of women who take antibiotics during pregnancy have a 20 per cent higher risk of being hospitalised with infections, new research says

The medication may disturb the mother’s microbiome, the good bugs in the gut, which she passes on to her baby when it is born, helping to build its immune system, the research found.

The study, by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Aarhus University of Denmark, analysed more than 700,000 children.

Taking antibiotics closer to the baby’s birth or having more than one course also increased the child’s risk of being hospitalised with infections such as gastroenteritis and pneumonia, it found.

The increased risk appeared to persist throughout childhood.

A possible explanation was taking antibiotics during preg- nancy reduced the good bacteria in the gut microbiome, lead author Jessica Miller said.

“This could increase susceptibility to infection, especially in early childhood, possibly by a sub-optimal immune development,” she wrote in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

There was also a higher risk of infection in children of women who took antibiotics before or after pregnancy, which Dr Miller said could be due to genetics or environment.

Paediatric infection special- ist David Burgner said the study only showed an association between antibiotic use in pregnancy and childhood infection risk — not causation.

“It’s not unsafe to take antibiotics during pregnancy, we just need to use them carefully as we should in any patient group,” Prof Burgner said.

It is estimated one in eight pregnant women are prescribed antibiotics in Australia.

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists spokeswoman Bernadette White said the research highlighted the importance of sensible antibiotic prescribing.

“The message to women would be don’t take antibiotics if you don’t need them, question the doctor about whether it’s a bacterial infection, but don’t avoid them if you really need them.”

“We wouldn’t want women to think they should go without because the increased risk in the study was small.”