Children given antibiotics before the age of two are more likely to develop eczema in later life, experts have found.
Studies on almost 400,000 people found that giving the drugs to infants increased their chance of developing the painful skin allergy by up to 41 per cent, and their risk of hay fever by up to 56 per cent.
Researchers think that giving babies antibiotics so early kills off the natural bacteria in their gut, so their immune system never gets used to dealing with germs.
It means that when exposed to relatively harmless foreign substances such as pollen, their immune system over-reacts, sparking an allergic reaction.
The scientists, who will present their data today at the European Respiratory Society congress in London, compiled the results of 22 studies. They found the increased risk of eczema ranged from 15 to 41 per cent depending on the type of study analysed, rising to 14 to 56 per cent for hay fever.
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