Research presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology has concluded that oral contraceptives taken around the time of conception are not associated with respiratory problems in the child.

The findings were based on a cohort study which enrolled pregnant women in Norway from 1999 to 2008. The associations between type of oral contraceptive use before pregnancy and lower respiratory tract infections in 60,225 children followed until they were 6 months old, lower respiratory tract infections and wheezing in 42,520 children followed up to 18 months old, and asthma in 24,472 children who were followed to 36 months old were assessed.

According to the researchers, the use of estrogen-progestin combined pills before pregnancy was not associated with lower respiratory tract infections, wheezing or asthma in the children who were followed in the study. However, the study did find that the use of the progestogen-only pill in the year before pregnancy had a small positive association with wheezing in the first year of life, but the association was small.

No statistical data were presented in this abstract.