Medical News Today quotes Dr. Johan C. de Jongste of Erasmus University in the Netherlands, ‘We found no evidence for a protective or harmful effect of daycare on the development of asthma symptoms, allergic sensitization, or airway hyper-responsiveness at the age of eight years.’
In fact, daycare attendance contributed to a higher risk of respiratory infections and wheezing in the first year compared to children who did not attend daycare. Additionally, having older siblings caused earlier infections.
The researchers followed about 4,000 Dutch children over the course of eight years. Parents filled out questionnaires during pregnancy, at three months, twelve months, and then every year until the children were eight years old. At that point, most of the children underwent testing for allergies.
Far from being protective, early darycare may actually pose problems. As Dr. de Jongste sums up the research's findings, ‘Early daycare merely seems to shift the burden of respiratory morbidity to an earlier age where it is more troublesome than at a later age. Early daycare should not be promoted for reasons of preventing asthma and allergy.’