Both my children are northern hemisphere autumn babies and both had lots of viruses in the first year so found this research interesting. It is something worth thinking about if you are expecting in the autumn and have asthma in your family.

http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=621587

To me it looks like they only looked at US babies. Interesting that they come to the conclusion that "Northern hemisphere" autumn babies are more prone to asthma.... IMHO there just might be some more factors involved other than the season your kids was born in. Maybe I'm just too cynical or too tired, but if you want to and choose the right study group I am sure you can prove anything.

It's true they only looked at US babies but it was a huge sample which makes it worth thinking about. And it definitely opens avenues for further research.

Well, there are studies showing that children that are exposed to multiple infections during their first year will have less asthma and allergies....

Well I certianly hope that is true because my two have had their fair share of viruses...and they were both breastfed till well over a year. But the older one has bouts of night coughing and has wheezed a bit every now and again. She's been at the Children's Hospital here a few times and has been given ventalin in those instances to help with her breathing. She is still too young to be diagnosed as asthmatic but it does worry me. So I my antennae always go up when I see studies like this. As I previously mentioned, both mine are autumn babies.

I have no time to read the link, but it caught my attention, as I just returned from the Czech republic. It is a well known fact there, for a while already, and people are advised not to concieve during winter months due to general poor quality of air (which is not only in the biggest cities). It is a world wide phenomenon, just not made very public. We have one of the world's top pre and post natal care and general public does worry about babies and their health a lot, since we don't have many babies being born lately, the population is shrinking too fast.

So, since half of my family are air toxicology specialists and public health risk and enviromental scientists, we have been discussing this theme for ever. I believe the link between air ways problems and time of conception, even if one is in a relatively healthy environment, the air is often bad in small villages as well, due to exhausts, coal burning, etc..I don't remember what other risks there were with winter months conception but could find out.

I don't blame you for your sensitive antenas, hope your little ones breathing improves quickly.

Been in the same situation with my son - and I'm badly asthmatic (but under control)...

my son was born in Spring though no Autumn...

I still think genetics has more to do with it

time of year could affect for example - if they're born in Autumn then they get less activity or sunshine in the first 6months than those born in spring/summer

but my other son born in autumn has nary a cough ever

Unfortunately, the summary of this research linked to above and the complete article published in the scientific journal both make a major, but all too common, mistake in risk communication. Research in risk communication has shown that one of the main factors that causes people to mis-understand risks is by using odds-ratios to communicate them, and this is exactly what this research has done.

The article, and the summary drives home the point that babies born in the autumn have a 29% greater risk of getting asthma. Looking at the article, you can discover that the normal risk of getting asthma is about 8%. Most people infer from this that the risk of a baby born in the autumn getting asthma must be 37% (8% + 29%). In fact, this is not how it works. If the normal risk of getting asthma is about 8% then when this is increased by 29% the increased risk is actually about 10.3% (8% * 129%). The value of 29% is a relative increase (or an "odds-ratio"), not an absolute increase (which is only 2.3%: 10.3% - 8%).

Of course, the researchers want to make a big deal about their results to increase their funding and further their careers, and the people writing the summary article in the popular press want to increase their readership, so they all use the value of 29% instead of the more understandable, and arguably more important value of 2.3%. The result of all of this self-interest is that the general public gets misled.

Furthermore, the researchers and the people writing the summary try to simplify the story by saying that the rate of increase is 29% (although the absolute increase is about 2%) is true for all babies born in the autumn. In fact, the full results show that it is a much more gradual increase and decline of risk across the entire year, and the difference in the values at the very worst day compared to the very best day is 29% in relative terms, or about 2% in absolute terms. If this was to be averaged across all babies born in the autumn compared to all babies born in all other months (which is what most people assume that the result refers to when reading about it), the actual absolute difference would probably be less than 1%!

There's a big difference between 29% and 1%, and I think it's wrong to mislead people in this way. Hopefully, if you've made it all the way to here in my comment then you'll now know to treat statements of relative risk increases with a lot more caution, and hopefully try to find out what the absolute risk increase is instead (unfortunately, this can often be quite difficult to do).