Puffing in Pregnancy
Ups Risk Child Will Smoke

Children of mothers who smoked at least one pack of cigarettes per day while pregnant are more likely to become addicted to nicotine as adults than children whose time in the womb was spent smoke-free, new research reports.

Children of mothers who smoked in pregnancy were not more likely to smoke cigarettes, but "they're more likely to become dependent if they try," study author Dr. Stephen L. Buka of Harvard University in Boston told Reuters Health.

During the study, Buka and his colleagues reviewed interviews with 1,248 pregnant women about their smoking habits. Once women gave birth, their children were re-contacted as adults, and asked about their own smoking habits.

In an interview, Buka explained that pregnant women were interviewed many years ago, when people were not yet aware of the health effects of smoking. Consequently, more than 60 percent of the women smoked, and around 35 percent smoked at least one pack on at least one day of their pregnancies.

Children of women who smoked at least one pack of cigarettes on at least one day of their pregnancies were more likely to become addicted to cigarettes than adults whose womb was smoke-free.

Children of women who smoked heavily during pregnancy were also twice as likely as children of smoke-free mothers to progress from being occasional or regular smokers to addicts.

However, children of women who smoked but did not go through a pack or more on any day of their pregnancy did not show a higher risk of becoming addicts, the authors report in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Buka explained that exposure to nicotine likely alters the fetus's brain structure, rendering it more likely to become addicted when exposed to cigarettes as an adult.

Alternatively, he and his team suggest that mothers who smoke in pregnancy likely continue to smoke once the baby is born, and the brain-altering effects of nicotine may occur from drinking nicotine-filled breast milk or breathing in the home environment.

Buka added that smoking during pregnancy appeared to have no effect on a child's risk of becoming addicted to marijuana as an adult, suggesting that exposure to smoke in the womb does not increase the risk of all types of substance use.

Currently in the U.S., an estimated 12 percent of women who give birth smoked during their pregnancies. As a result, more than 500,000 babies are born each year who were exposed to cigarette smoke in the womb.

Smoking during pregnancy is linked to a number of other ill effects, including a higher risk of miscarriage, low birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

The current findings provide women with yet another incentive to quit during pregnancy, Buka noted. "Everyone involved in helping a pregnant woman to not smoke should redouble their efforts," he said.

SOURCE: American Journal of Psychiatry, November 2003.

Reference Source 89

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