Babies who suffer from infections in their first year of life increase their chances of developing arthritis when they are older, it has been claimed.

Swedish researchers investigated the medical history of 333 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 3,334 who suffered from juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).

They found that those who were taken to hospital with an infection before their first birthday had a higher chance of developing one of the two types of arthritis in later years.

Speaking at the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism in Paris, Dr Cecilia Carlens of Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, said: "Whilst recent research has suggested that early life infections are of importance to the maturation of the immune system in general, our analysis shows a link between perinatal infection and increased RA and JIA risk in particular, highlighting the importance of a child's formative months on his or her rheumatic health in later life."

The researchers used information from the Swedish Inpatient Register and the Early Arthritis Register to conduct the study.

They linked those on these two lists to the Swedish Medical Birth Register to determine which patients had infections during their first year of life.

Other factors which were also said to heighten the likelihood of developing arthritis included a low birth weight and a longer gestational period of over 42 weeks.

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