STUDY: Smoking During Pregnancy Linked to Obese Babies

Posted on November 20, 2016

Leanne Rimes Halloween costume as smoking shotgun wedding bride

At least one in five women continue to smoke during pregnancy according to a Scottish study that links the unhealthy habit with excessive weight gain in children.

The finding has renewed calls for greater efforts to wean mothers off cigarettes once they become pregnant amid concern that rates in Scotland are among the worst in the world.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh found that of 2,278 mothers, about 419 (18%) smoked while pregnant. The real number is likely to be much higher as the reported figure represents only those who admitted to smoking during pregnancy.

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Study: Diabetes risk high for women whose mothers smoked while pregnant

Posted on February 17, 2015

New research suggests that women whose own moms smoked while pregnant are two to three times more likely to develop as adults.

This suggestion is based on a survey of 1,800 women between 1959 and 1967 who received obstetric care in San Francisco as part of an early. The study was limited to women because it was initially launched to explore breast cancer risk. The findings found that fetal exposure to cigarettes not only increased the risk of obesity and low birth weight, but also diabetes.

“Our findings are consistent with the idea that gestational environmental chemical exposures can contribute to the development of health and disease,” study author assistant professor of environmental toxicology at the University of California, Davis, Michelle La Merrill, said in a release. “We found that smoking of parents is by itself a risk factor for diabetes, independent of obesity or birth weight,” she added. According to La Merrill, the study suggests that, “if a parent smokes, you’re not protected from diabetes just because you’re lean.”

read more about this finding in Philly.com

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STUDY: Pregnant Smoking Alters Baby’s genes

Posted on July 31, 2014

A new study concludes that smoking while pregnant actually alters the genes of the baby. The CounselHealth.com wrote:

Smoking during pregnancy could cause epigenetic changes in the fetus, causing birth defects and health problems later in life, a new study has found.
According to the study, newborn children of mothers who smoked while pregnant are more likely to have experienced certain changes to their DNA than newborn children of non-smokers.
Children exposed to tobacco smoke in utero have a higher risk of birth defects and are more likely to suffer from some medical problems than the children of women who did not smoke while pregnant, the press release further added.
The study also added that the difference between the children of smokers and the children of non-smokers continues into adulthood.

Researchers are yet to explain what causes these problems, but earlier studies have suggested that exposure to toxins in tobacco smoke could cause changes to the DNA of the developing fetus.
Researchers studied blood samples from 889 newborns of which 287 had mothers who reported smoking in the first trimester of pregnancy. The study found a link between maternal smoking and altered methylation in 110 gene regions.

The study has been published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

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