Smoking Damages Baby's Blood Vessels

(November 21, 2008) - When women get pregnant, they are advised to stop smoking. (Read about "Healthy Pregnancy" "Quit Smoking") Smoking during pregnancy has been shown to result in problems for both the mother and the child. Now a study says that problems continue for the child into adulthood. Children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy had more damage to their arteries (Read about "Vascular System") in young adulthood than offspring of non-smokers and the association was even stronger if both parents smoked, researchers reported in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers found children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy had linings of carotid arteries in the neck that were 13.4 micrometers thicker by young adulthood than offspring whose mothers didn't smoke. The association - which in later life could be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease - was present even after adjustment for known risk factors such as age, gender, body mass index and cholesterol levels.

The study included 732 young adults, average age 28, born in the 1970's when smoking was more common. Twenty-nine percent of the mothers smoked during pregnancy and more than 60 percent of the fathers smoked.

Researchers found that offspring of mothers who smoked were lighter and shorter at birth, heavier in adolescence and more likely to be smokers in young adulthood. However, this did not hold true if the young adults were offspring of just smoking fathers.