With allergies and asthma on the rise, many parents, especially those with young children who have a high risk of allergies, wonder whether owning a pet can raise their child's risk even more. At the Congress of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Warsaw, Poland, this week, world leaders in allergy are debating the same question, but they've taken the question one step further: They're also asking if having pets early in life can actually protect against allergies.

Here are some answers to your questions on both sides of the allergy debate.

Will owning a cat increase my child's risk of developing allergies?

The good news for pet lovers is that two meta analyses that were presented at the conference found that owning a pet in the first two years of life did not increase a child's risk of allergy or asthma.

However studies have found conflicting results, with some showing protection and others showing increased risk. Adnan Custovic, M.D., professor of allergy at the University of Manchester, in England, has been researching genetic predispositions to allergies.

There appear to be many factors that affect your risk of allergies--your phenotype (genetic profile), the age of exposure to allergens, how much exposure you get (the dander of five cats versus that of one cat) and even what other allergens are present, like dust mites and mold. "Some people may benefit from having a cat or dog, but some may be hurt," Custovic said.

What about the opposite? Could owning a cat actually protect my child from developing allergies?

Experts used to believe that early avoidance of all allergens was key, but solid studies have found that having a too-clean environment may help some people but hurt the majority of people. That's because being exposed to microbes and bacteria is thought to help in the normal development of the immune system.

When it comes to owning a cat, some studies suggests that exposure to allergens early in life can help you build up a tolerance to them. "The classic concept was to take away the cat, but in the last five years there's been a change in paradigm as we realized that eliminating exposure resulted in very little long lasting protection," says Ulrich Wahn, M.D., professor of pediatric allergy at the Charité University in Berlin.

So...should I get rid of my cat?

The evidence isn't strong enough yet to recommend for or against having pets, so there's no reason to get rid of your cat -- unless your child has already been diagnosed with cat allergies.

Laurie Tarkan is a health reporter covering the Congress of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Warsaw, Poland. She writes for the New York Times and national magazines, and is the author of two books on pregnancy and infertility. She has recently launched her own allergy blog.