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Infant Respiratory Symptoms Associated with Indoor Heating Sources

Center for Perinatal, Pediatric and Environmental Epidemology, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut; and Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, New York

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Elizabeth W. Triche, Ph.D., Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, 60 College Street, P.O. Box 208034, New Haven, CT 06520-8034. E-mail: elizabeth.triche{at}yale.edu

ABSTRACT

This study examined the effects of indoor heating sources on infant respiratory symptoms during the heating season of the first year of life. Mothers delivering babies between 1993 and 1996 at 12 hospitals in Connecticut and Virginia were enrolled. Daily symptom and heating source use information about their infant was obtained every 2 weeks during the first year of life. Heating sources included fireplace, wood stove, kerosene heater, and gas space heater use. Four health outcomes were analyzed by reporting period: days of wheeze, episodes of wheeze, days of cough, and episodes of cough. A large percentage of infants had at least one episode of cough (88%) and wheeze (33%) during the heating season of the first year of life. Wood stove, fireplace, kerosene heater, and gas space heater use was intermittent across the study period. In adjusted Poisson regression models controlling for important confounders, gas space heater use was associated with episodes and days of wheeze. Wood stove use was associated with total days of cough, and kerosene heater use was associated with episodes of cough. Fireplace use was not associated with any of the respiratory symptoms. Use of some heating sources appears related to respiratory symptoms in infants.

Key Words: cough • gas space heaters • infant respiratory symptoms • kerosene heaters • wheeze • wood stoves

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