Secondhand Smoke Exposure During Pregnancy Linked To Behavior Problems In Kids (...
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April8,2013
Secondhand Smoke Exposure During Pregnancy Linked To
Behavior Problems In Kids (STUDY)
Posted: 04/01/2013 4:07 pm EDT | Updated: 04/06/2013 1:39 pm EDT
By: Lindsey Konkel, MyHealthNewsDaily Contributor
Published: 04/01/2013 10:17 AM EDT on MyHealthNewsDaily
A woman's exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy may affect her child's risk of behavior problems, a new study has found.
The study showed that children whose mothers were exposed to secondhand smoke for at least 30 minutes daily were more than twice
as likely to have attention and aggression problems at age 5 as the children whose mothers reported no secondhand smoke exposure.
This is one of the first studies to link a mother's exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy to child behavior problems.
Researchers ? led by Jianghong Liu, associate professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing ? evaluated
more than 600 mother-child pairs in Jintan, China. The researchers asked mothers to recall how frequently they had been exposed to
secondhand smoke during pregnancy, and also measured behavior problems in the children at ages 5 or 6 using a common behavior
scale.
"This study is pretty novel in that it's a population of women where active smoking rates are very low, yet passive exposure is high ?
which allows the researchers to really hone in on the effects of environmental tobacco smoke during the prenatal period," said Heather
Volk, an epidemiologist at the University of Southern California who was not involved in the study.
Thirty-seven percent of the mothers in the study reported exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy. The results showed that
25 percent of the children whose mothers were exposed to secondhand smoke showed attention and aggression problems, whereas
only 16 percent of the children whose mothers were not exposed showed behavior problems.
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Smoking by women is highly stigmatized in China, so the researchers did not ask the study women whether they had smoked during
pregnancy, though the researchers acknowledged that it is possible that several mothers may have smoked. A previous study
estimated that less than 2 percent of Chinese women smoke.
More than three-quarters of the fathers in the study who stopped smoking at home while their wives were pregnant resumed smoking
once the baby was born.
The study didn't account for the effects of exposure to secondhand smoke after the baby was born, but other research has shown that
smoking near a baby has harmful effects on the child's health, Liu said.
"The postnatal window is critical for cognitive development," said Kim Yolton, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Medical Center.
Previous studies have found that kids born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy may be at increased risk of behavior problems ?
such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, aggression and criminal behavior ? during adolescence and adulthood
Although the researchers accounted for other variables that could affect children's behavior problems ? such as parents' histories of
psychological problems, maternal age at childbirth, a child's gender and the levels of lead in the blood ? they can't say for certain
whether any other factors influenced the results of the study.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/01/secondhand-smoke-exposure-during-pregnancy... 4/8/2013
Secondhand Smoke Exposure During Pregnancy Linked To Behavior Problems In Kids (...
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For instance, the researchers did not collect information on whether the children were born prematurely or at a low birth weight ? both
of which may be caused by smoking exposure and have been linked to child neurodevelopment.
Additionally, the researchers noted that a recent Canadian study found that tobacco products from China contained about three times
the amount of heavy metals linked to behavior problems ? such as lead, cadmium and arsenic ? than the levels seen in Canadian
tobacco products.
"Tobacco and nicotine are truly bad toxicants with lifelong consequences,” Yolton said. “Pregnant women need to protect that fetus
from any level of smoking exposure."
The study was published in the January issue of the journal NeuroToxicology.
Pass it on: Exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy may have long-term consequences on a child’s behavior.
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