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PREGNANT SMOKERS PREDETERMINE KIDS HABITS

Women who smoke during pregnancy run the risk of 'programming' their children to be smokers later in life, research shows.

According to scientists in Australia, the offspring of women who smoke while pregnant are much more likely to take up smoking than other children, which may be a result of the nicotine passing through the placenta and affecting the foetus' brain.

Published in Tobacco Control, the study adds further weight to the widely-held view that smoking can have a considerable impact upon the unborn child and it will act as further motivation for those who are hoping to give up.

Incredibly, children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were found to be three times more likely to take up smoking by the age of 14 than those whose mothers were non-smokers. These children were also found to be twice as likely to smoke after the age of 14 as their counterparts.

The researchers conclude: "Our findings suggest a direct effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on young adults' development of regular smoking and provide yet another incentive to persuade pregnant women not to smoke and to discourage young women from ever taking it up."

Researchers have previously found that smoking increases the levels of carbon monoxide in the bloodstream, thus reducing the amount of oxygen reaching the baby. It has also been suggested that nicotine can constrict the blood vessels on the side of the placenta, which similarly has the result of limiting oxygen supply to the unborn child.

Meanwhile, research from the University of Southern California has drawn further attention to the damage caused by smoking as a teenager. A long-running study found that teenagers who smoke are four times more likely to develop asthma than their peers who do not smoke.

If the smoking teenagers were also exposed to tobacco smoke in the womb, the risk of developing asthma is nine times higher than it is for non-smokers.