The pill may raise odds of having allergic kids — after the mother-to-be goes off the pill, of course:
To investigate, the researchers studied 618 asthmatic children aged 5 or 6 years and compared them with 564 similar but unaffected children.The team found that, compared to children whose mothers had not used oral contraceptives, those who had taken the pill within a year of becoming pregnant had a 67 percent greater likelihood of having a child with allergic rhinitis, or nasal allergy.
This was particularly the case in families where the parents had allergies, and this association was stronger in boys.
There was no association between mothers’ use of the pill and the occurrence of asthma or eczema in their offspring.