MONDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- Children infected with Helicobacter pylori are more likely to acquire the infection from their mothers than their fathers, according to a report published in the May issue of Epidemiology.
Maria Weyermann, Ph.D., of the German Centre for Research on Ageing in Heidelberg, and colleagues assessed the risk of family H. pylori transmission in 834 German children aged 3 years.
The researchers found that 20 children (2.4 percent) had the infection. Children of infected mothers had a 12.9 percent infection risk, versus a 1.4 percent risk if their fathers had the infection.
"This longitudinal study suggests that infected mothers are the main source of H. pylori infection of their children," the authors write.
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