We wish to reply to Drs Raza, Kurukulaaratchy and Arshad who commented on our recent article.1 Our primary aim for making a severity score was to try to predict the prognosis of early life obstructive airways disease, independent of invasive examinations or measurements, and easily applicable for use in other studies and in primary care. Thus it is not clear to us why Raza et al find the factors used in our severity score difficult to define, including our use of hospitalisations for obstructive airways disease. In our view, hospital admission because of bronchial obstruction is an objective measure of severity, which …