A study presented at the International Congress of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), which is being held this week in Munich (Germany) returns to a preconceived idea. While young parents are often advised not to let their pet come into the children’s room, it would seem, on the contrary, that sleeping with a pet (or with a sheepskin, for example) would protect against childhood asthma.
A team from the Helmholtz Zentrum research center in Munich followed more than 2,400 children from birth to 10 years old. Their goal: to determine if sleeping on animal fur has an impact on allergic asthma. More than half of the children followed had slept near an animal during the three months following their birth.
The results of their study may seem surprising since the risk of asthma was reduced by 79% in children aged 6 who slept near animal fur. This protective effect then drops somewhat but remains at 41% after 10 years.
This is not the first study to point the finger at the protective effect of pets on children’s health.
Recently, a Finnish study showed that living with a dog or a cat for the first twelve months of life reduced their risk of developing by 30%. ear infections as well as symptoms of respiratory infections such as cough, fever, rhinitis.
Allergic asthma is a chronic disease that affects the upper airways and affects 1 million people in France. While this pathology was almost non-existent at the end of the 19th century, the prevalence but also the severity of this asthma has increased sharply in recent years.
