Asthma may lead to infertility in women: study

Melbourne: Women with asthma who only use short-acting asthma relievers take longer to become pregnant, a study has found. However, the research also shows that women with asthma who use long-acting asthma preventers conceive as quickly as other women. The results, published in European Respiratory Journal, provide reassurance for asthmatic women that using inhaled corticosteroids to prevent symptoms does not appear to reduce fertility.

“Five to 10 percent of all women around the world have asthma and it is one of the most common chronic medical conditions in women of reproductive age,” said Luke Grzeskowiak from the University of Adelaide in Australia.

“Studying the effect of asthma treatments in women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant is important as women often express concerns about exposing their unborn babies to potentially harmful effects of medications,” said Grzeskowiak.

The researchers examined more than 5,600 women expecting their first babies in the early stages of pregnancy. Ten percent of women in the study said they had asthma and, overall, these women took longer to get pregnant.

When researchers separated this group according to the types of asthma treatments they were using, they found no difference in fertility between women using long-acting asthma treatments and women without asthma. Women using short-acting reliever medication (known as beta-agonists) took 20 percent longer to conceive on average.

They were also 30 percent more likely to have taken more than a year to conceive, which the researchers defined as the threshold for infertility. This difference remained even after researchers took other factors known to influence fertility, such as age and weight, into account.

“This study shows that women using short-acting asthma relievers take longer to get pregnant,” Grzeskowiak said. “On the other hand, continued use of long-acting asthma preventers to control asthma seems to protect fertility and reduce the time it takes women with asthma to become pregnant. This could lead to a reduction in the need for fertility treatments,” he added.