Most women today know that smoking during pregnancy can cause a lot of harm to their unborn child, but years ago this fact wasn't so clear. And for the children of mothers who smoked, this could mean an increased risk of stroke and heart attack, say researchers.
Mothers who smoke during pregnancy seem to cause permanent damage to their child's cardiovascular system, which raises the risk for stroke and heart attack later in life. This damage, researchers say, is different from the damage caused when a baby inhales secondhand smoke.
"This is the first report to demonstrate this association," said Dr. Cuno S. Uiterwaal, lead study author from the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands.
Researchers looked at standard cardiac risk measurements in 732 young adults born between 1970 and 1973. Of the participants, 215 were born to mothers who had smoked during pregnancy. These men and women were found to have thicker walls in the arteries on their neck as compared to those whose mothers did not smoke while pregnant. Thickness in arterial walls is a sign of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.
Atherosclerosis, in turn, raises the risk for heart disease, including stroke and heart attack.
Though other risk factors for atherosclerosis, such as age, gender, body mass index, blood pressure and cholesterol, also contributed to their heart disease risk, it was found that having a mother who smoked while pregnant was a separate, significant factor in heart disease risk.
If both parents smoked during pregnancy, the apparent atherosclerosis was even worse than in those adults whose mother only smoked during pregnancy. In fact, the more cigarettes a woman smoked during pregnancy, the worse the impact on the child's heart disease risk.
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Additionally, there was no difference in atherosclerosis risk for the offspring of mothers who never smoked and in those whose mother began smoking after they were born.
"While it is difficult to separate the problem of current smoking and smoking during pregnancy, this study indicates that smoking in pregnancy has an independent effect," said Uiterwaal.
The researchers believe that the chemicals cigarette smoke can pass through the placenta during pregnancy and permanently damage their child's cardiovascular system.
"This is just another reason for expectant mothers not to smoke," said Uiterwaal. "This is a preventable risk factor. Women need to stop smoking, especially in pregnancy, not only with their own health, but for their unborn child."
