Children in Day Nurseries With Special Reference to the Child Under Two Years Old

Acute infections, infection pressure, and atopy

“…These results confirm, once again, the classic observation from war-time nurseries in the UK that infection pressure, i.e. size of the day-care group, is positively associated with occurrence of common childhood infections [22][23][24]. Hence, the fact that rubella and mumps were not dependent on infection pressure in the younger age group could result from non-apparent clinical infections among them coupled with the relatively small window of disease occurrence after maternal antibodies have waned away, might have hampered the resolution in this age group.…”

“…As admitting the limitations, however, it is to be noted that the analyses from this large material in totality do not support the new hygiene hypothesis, but the material behaves otherwise according expectations [22–24]. Hence, the statistically border line significant result, which indicates that the 6‐year‐olds would have somewhat less asthma, could be interpreted as being in line with the hygiene hypothesis.…”