SMOKING PROBLEM FOR PREGNANCY WOMAN
Smoking during pregnancy puts your baby's health at risk. This is a long know
suspicion and fact. Researchers now conducted a long term study. Here are the
results. This is an extract of the entire article.
Women who smoke during pregnancy can cause permanent vascular damage
in their children
Women who smoke during pregnancy can cause permanent vascular damage in their
children - increasing their risk for stroke and heart attack, researchers said
at the American Heart Association's 47th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular
Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.
The Netherlands Atherosclerosis Risk in Young Adults (ARYA) study showed that
participants who were exposed to smoke when their mothers were pregnant resulted
in permanent cardiovascular damage that could be detected in young adulthood.
Smoking during pregnancy can result in intrauterine growth retardation and
low birth weight. Active and passive smoking in young adults also is associated
with cardiovascular disease. But until the Dutch study, researchers were unsure
whether this is due to a cumulative effect of smoke or whether children are
vulnerable at specific periods, such as during gestation.
The study's 732 participants were born in 1970-73 and vascular risk measurements
were performed in 1999-2000. Uiterwaal and colleagues found that adult offspring
of the 215 mothers who smoked during pregnancy had thicker walls of the carotid
arteries in the neck. The carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT), an ultrasound
measurement of the thickness of the inner walls of the neck arteries, is used
to determine the level of atherosclerosis. Offspring whose pregnant mothers
were exposed to smoke had 13.4 micrometers thicker CIMT by young adulthood when
compared to the offspring of mothers who did not smoke in pregnancy, researchers
reported.
Even after the researchers adjusted for other risk factors in the young adults
such as age, gender, body mass index, pulse pressure and cholesterol levels,
the CIMT remained 9.4 micrometers thicker in children of mothers who smoked.
Adjustment for current smoking by both mothers and fathers or the number of
pack years (one "pack year" is 20 cigarettes smoked/day for one year)
smoked by study participants also did not change this association.
If both parents smoked during pregnancy, the children as young adults had thicker
CIMT than other participants with either one smoking parent or parents who didn't
smoke. Offspring of mothers who smoked the highest number of cigarettes during
pregnancy had thicker CIMT than those born to mothers smoking less than the
average or those who did not smoke.
"Our findings suggest that both smoking by mothers themselves in pregnancy
and exposure to passive smoking are important," he said. "More exposure
leads to more vascular damage in the offspring."
The researchers found that pregnancy was a critical period for damage from
smoke exposure. They compared the children of mothers who didn't smoke during
pregnancy and were currently not smoking to the children of mothers who didn't
smoke in pregnancy but smoked now. They found no difference in CIMT. However,
children from mothers who smoked in pregnancy, but who didn't currently smoke
had significantly thicker CIMT compared to offspring of abstaining mothers.
"There is the possibility that the compounds in tobacco smoke go through
the placenta and directly damage the cardiovascular system of the fetus,"
Uiterwaal said. "The damage appears to be permanent and stays with the
children."
When study participants were born, about 30 percent of the mothers smoked during
pregnancy. But the current rate has dropped to between 5 percent and 7 percent
due to health warnings, Uiterwaal said.
"There are still substantial numbers of mothers who smoke during pregnancy,"
he said. "This is just another reason for expectant mothers not to smoke."
This is the first study in which researchers have dealt with this issue. Uiterwaal
said further evidence should come from additional studies that show similar
results. (by http://www.news-medical.net/?id=22384)
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