Children born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy have smaller brains and are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, according to research just published.
The findings published by Neuropsychopharmacology magazine last night in New York and London, followed research into more than 200 six to eight-year-old Dutch children.
The study found that tobacco affects the development of the foetus’s nervous system, partly because it interferes with the growth of neurons and partly because smoking narrows the blood vessels of the foetus.
Half of the mothers selected for the research smoked and half did not but the brains of the children of those who continued smoking were significantly smaller up to eight years later.
Equally, they showed greater levels of anxiety and depression because their brains’ superior frontal cortex, which regulates mood swings, had developed more poorly.
The study did “not demonstrate” a clear link between the number of cigarettes smoked, which varied from between just one a day to more than nine, but the length of time a mother continued to smoke was critical. Seventeen smokers quit when told that they were pregnant, though the research found that children were unaffected by their mothers’ habits if they quit early enough.
Source: Mark Hennessy, Irish Times, 08/10/13
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