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Mom's Smoking Raises
Kids' Adult Heart Risk
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Friday, March 2, 2007; 12:00 AM
FRIDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) --
Women who smoke during pregnancy can cause permanent damage to their
child's circulatory system, which can increase risks for heart disease
and stroke later in life, Dutch researchers report.
"The kids of the mothers who
smoked when they were pregnant have an increased atherosclerosis
[hardening of the arteries] compared with kids whose mothers didn't
smoke," said researcher Dr. Michiel L. Bots, an associate
professor of clinical epidemiology at the University Medical Center
Utrecht. "Pregnancy is a critical period for damage from smoke
exposure," he added.
His team's analysis of data from the
Netherlands Atherosclerosis Risk in Young Adults study found that
people exposed to smoke when their mothers were pregnant had permanent
cardiovascular damage that could be detected in young adulthood.
The findings were expected to be
presented Friday at the American Heart Association's Annual Conference
on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention in Orlando, Fla.
In addition, smoking during pregnancy
can result in compromised intrauterine growth and low birth weight,
Bots noted.
In the study, Bots and colleagues
collected data on 732 people born between 1970 and 1973.
They found that, at the age of 30,
adult children of the 215 mothers who smoked during their pregnancy
had thicker walls of the carotid arteries in the neck -- an early sign
of atherosclerosis -- compared with adult children whose mothers
didn't smoke.
Offspring whose pregnant mothers were
exposed to smoke had 13.4 micrometers thicker carotid artery walls by
the time they reached young adulthood compared to the offspring of
mothers who did not smoke during pregnancy.
Fathers weren't left off the hook,
either. Ifbothparents smoked during pregnancy, by 30 years of age,
their children had thicker artery walls than people with one smoking
parent or parents who did not smoke, the researchers noted.
Moreover, the more the mother smoked,
the thicker the carotid artery walls of her offspring, Bots's team
found.
"We have confirmed that smoking
during pregnancy is not good for your child," Bots said. "It
fits with the evidence that these children have higher blood pressures
and are more overweight when they are adults, and we have extended
that to show they have more atherosclerosis when they are 30."
One expert said the findings support
the common wisdom on smoking and heart disease.
"This study seems to extend what
we already know about coronary artery disease, that the process starts
very early," said Dr. Byron Lee, assistant professor of medicine,
University of California, San Francisco.
Already, children have been found to
have fatty streaks in their arteries, Lee said. "These fatty
streaks are the precursors to more severe arterial narrowing that can
lead to angina and heart attacks. This study suggests that artery
disease may even start during gestation, giving pregnant women yet
another reason to refrain from smoking," he said.
Another expert agreed.
"This is further evidence of the
need for women who smoke to quit," said Matt Barry, the director
of policy research for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "And
also for them to avoid secondhand smoke," he added.
People need to be educated about not
smoking in their homes, Barry added. "There need to be more
programs to help people quit," he said. "In addition, we
need to be more aggressive in reaching out to pregnant women and women
of childbearing age."
Barry noted that many women do quit
when they are pregnant but then start smoking again after delivery.
"Seven out of 10 women who quit [during pregnancy] take up
smoking again," he said. "Often, smoking during the
postpartum environment is as dangerous as the pregnancy itself."
More information
For more information on the perils of
smoking during pregnancy, visit the American
Pregnancy Association.
SOURCES: Michiel L. Bots, M.D., Ph.D.,
associate professor, clinical epidemiology, University Medical Center
Utrecht, The Netherlands; Matt Barry, director, policy research,
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Washington, D.C.; Byron Lee, M.D.,
assistant professor, medicine, University of California, San
Francisco; March 2, 2007, presentation, American Heart Association's
Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and
Prevention, Orlando, Fla.
This original
article
can be found online at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/02/AR2007030200892_pf.html
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