Abstract
Early-life disruption of microbiome development is known to impair health; however, the long-term effects of pregnancy-related pharmacological alterations to the maternal gut microbiota on offspring health remain unclear. This meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the impact of maternal antibiotic use (either prenatal or intrapartum) on the risk of childhood atopic dermatitis, based on cohort and case-control studies. Literature searches were conducted in EMBASE, PubMed, Cochrane, and Web of Science databases using predefined PICO (patients, intervention, comparison, outcome) criteria. Overall, our meta-analysis included 30 studies with a total of 4,125,143 mothers and 4,346,050 children. Using the random effects model, our study found that prenatal antibiotic use was associated with higher odds of atopic dermatitis in childhood (aOR: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.12; 1.56). This result remained significant after adjusting publication bias by the trim-and-fill method (aOR: 1.22; 95% CI: 1.03; 1.44), highlighting the potential relevance of antibiotic prescribing practices during pregnancy in relation to childhood atopic disease risk. Intrapartum antibiotic use was not associated with elevated risk for atopic dermatitis in the children (OR: 1.64; 95% CI: 0.84; 3.17). Prenatal antibiotic use appears to have a modest effect on atopic dermatitis in offspring.
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Abbreviations
- 95% CI:
-
95% Confidence interval
- AD:
-
Atopic dermatitis
- aHR:
-
Adjusted hazard ratio
- aOR:
-
Adjusted odds ratio
- GRADE:
-
Grading of recommendations assessment, development and evaluation
- HR:
-
Hazard ratio
- OR:
-
Odds ratio
- RR:
-
Relative risk
- PICO:
-
Patients, intervention, comparison, outcome, format
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the assistance provided by Dorottya Gergő in managing the EMBASE database.
Funding
Open access funding provided by University of Szeged. This paper was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship from the Hungarian Academy of Science.
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Petrás, S., Szabó, B.V., Kiss, T. et al. Prenatal maternal antibiotic use increases the risk of childhood eczema: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-51441-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-51441-x
