ArticleBMC medicine2026
Prenatal and/or childhood acid-suppressive medication use and risk of serious infections in children: A retrospective analysis of Taiwanese medical claims data.
Article in BMC medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRecent studies suggest an increased risk of serious infections associated with proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use in young children, but no study simultaneously examined the impact of acid-suppressive medication (ASM) use during pregnancy and childhood on infection risk in children. This study aimed to investigate the associations between prenatal and/or childhood exposure to ASMs and serious infections in children.
methodsA national cohort study was conducted based on the entire medical claims data in Taiwan, comparing prenatal and/or childhood exposure to PPIs or histamine-2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs) with antacid exposure in an active-comparator design. We quantified the risks of hospitalization for overall serious infection and specific infections, including sepsis, acute bronchiolitis or bronchitis, pneumonia, acute gastroenteritis, pyelonephritis, cellulitis or soft-tissue infection, meningitis or encephalitis, and septic arthritis or osteoarthritis, among children with prenatal and/or childhood exposure to PPIs or H2RAs. Adjusted hazard ratios (AHRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using Cox proportional hazard models.
resultsAmong 195,377 mother-child pairs prenatally exposed to PPIs or H2RAs (13.39% of the prenatal cohort) and 1,263,741 pairs exposed to antacids, prenatal exposure to PPIs or H2RAs was associated with an increased risk of overall serious infection compared with antacid exposure (AHR: 1.09; 95% CI: 1.06-1.12), as well as specific infections, including sepsis (AHR: 1.21; 95% CI: 1.03-1.12), acute bronchiolitis or bronchitis (AHR: 1.07; 95% CI: 1.03-1.11), pneumonia (AHR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.04-1.15), acute gastroenteritis (AHR: 1.12; 95% CI: 1.06-1.18), and pyelonephritis (AHR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.02-1.19). Subgroup analyses demonstrated consistent results for PPI and H2RA exposure when analyzed separately. Childhood exposure to PPIs or H2RAs was also associated with increased risks of serious infections, with the highest risks generally observed among children exposed during both prenatal and childhood periods (AHR 1.12 for overall serious infection; AHR 1.62 for sepsis; AHR 1.29 for acute bronchiolitis or bronchitis; AHR 1.06 for pneumonia; AHR 1.30 for acute gastroenteritis; and AHR 1.24 for pyelonephritis).
conclusionsThis nationwide cohort study provides real-world evidence of an association between prenatal and childhood exposure to PPIs or H2RAs and an increased risk of serious infections in children.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.