Asthma in pregnancy: Physiology, diagnosis, and management

Abstract

Asthma is a common, potentially serious, medical condition that affects an estimated 8% of pregnant patients, with 4% of all pregnant patients experiencing an exacerbation in the past year. Practitioners must be able to diagnose, educate, and treat such patients as they undergo significant physiological and immunologic change. But staying current can be challenging given over 3000 citations for “asthma and pregnancy” in a recent PubMed search, with 750 described as review articles. Patients have even more difficulty navigating information, with 29 million Google search results for this same query and 1.2 million alone for the question whether asthma medications are safe during pregnancy. This review provides brief answers to important management questions followed by supporting background literature.

Keywords :

• Long-acting β-agonist
• short-acting β-agonist
• inhaled corticosteroids
• pregnancy

Acknowledgments

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US government. The authors certify that all individuals who qualify as authors have been listed; that each author has participated in the conception and design of this work, the analysis of data (when applicable), the writing of the document, and the approval of the submission of this version; that the document represents valid work; that if we used information derived from another source, the authors have obtained all necessary approvals to use it and made appropriate acknowledgments in the document; and that each author takes public responsibility for it. Nothing in the presentation implies any federal/DOD/DON endorsement.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents, received or pending, or royalties.