Cold and other minor infection might increase the risk of stroke in children temporarily, a new research shows.

For the study, researchers examined the Kaiser Permanente database of 2.5 million children. Researchers noted 102 children who had an ischemic stroke without a major infection. This group was compared with 306 children without stroke.

The research team examined the medical records of children for minor infections up to two years before the stroke. About 80 percent of the infections were respiratory.

The study findings showed that the risk of stroke increased only within a three-day duration between doctors' visits for signs of infection and stroke. The team stated that 10 of the 102 children who had a stroke had a doctor visit for an infection within three days of the stroke while only two of the 306 control participants had an infection during the same time period, researchers explained in a press release.

The team said that the children who had strokes were 12 times more likely to have had an infection within the previous three days than the children without strokes. The total number of infections over a two-year period was not associated with increased stroke risk.

"While the study does show an increased risk, the overall risk of stroke among children is still extremely low," said Lars Marquardt, MD, DPhil, of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, who wrote a corresponding editorial. "Minor infections are very common in children while strokes are thankfully very rare. Parents should not be alarmed whatsoever if a child catches a simple cold."

"These findings suggest that infection has a strong but short-lived effect on stroke risk," said study author Heather J. Fullerton, MD, MAS, with UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital San Francisco. "We've seen this increase in stroke risk from infection in adults, but until now, an association has not been studied in children. It is possible that inflammatory conditions contribute more to the stroke risk in children, however, further research is needed to explore this possible association."

The study was published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.