Pregnant women exposed to passive smoke greater chance of child will have respiratory distress..

July 29, 2009 - Children born to women exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS, passive smoking, involuntary smoking, sidestream smoke, secondhand smoke) during pregnancy face an increased risk for asthma symptoms in early life, researchers warn.

“Smoking during pregnancy has been shown to be a considerable risk factor for changes in growth and maturation of the fetal lungs and the later development of wheeze and asthma,” explain Paraskevi Xepapadaki (University of Athens, Greece) and team in the journal Pediatric Allergy and Immunology (see Abstract below).

But they add it is not known whether passive smoking in pregnancy is associated with an increased risk for asthma and allergies in offspring.
Paraskevi Xepapadaki : “This study demonstrates for the first time that passive exposure of non-smoking pregnant women to ETS may be associated with the development of allergy- and asthma-related symptoms in their children.

To investigate, the association of passive exposure of pregnant women to ETS and asthma- and/or allergy-related symptoms in Preschool children. Cross-sectional data were collected with questionnaires from 2374 Preschool children (aged 1 and 6 years), recruited from public and private nurseries and day-care centers from 115 nurseries in five counties of Greece.

The children’s parents completed questionnaires detailing demographic characteristics, current and past smoking habits, and pre- and postnatal exposure of mothers and children to ETS. They were also asked about their children’s history of wheeze and whether they had been diagnosed with asthma. Furthermore, any history of adverse reactions to foods and diagnoses of food allergies among the children was ascertained.

Analysis revealed that children born to mothers who actively smoked during pregnancy were 1.47 times more likely to have a history of wheezing, 1.66 times more likely to have doctor-diagnosed asthma, 1.38 times more likely to have suffered a pruritic rash in the last 12 months, and 1.16 times more likely to have doctor diagnosed atopic dermatitis than those born to a mother who did not smoke during pregnancy.

In multivariate analysis children born to non-smoking mothers who were regularly exposed to ETS during the third trimester of pregnancy were 1.42 times more likely to be current wheezers, 1.46 times more likely to have doctor-diagnosed asthma, and 1.45 times more likely to have suffered a pruritic rash in the last 12 months, than women without such exposure.

ETS exposure during other trimesters was not significantly associated with these outcomes.

Clinicians need to be aware of this risk factor and encourage pregnant women factor and encourage pregnant women to avoid such exposure not to smoke and avoid exposure to secondhand smoke.

PAPER: Association of passive exposure of pregnant women to environmental tobacco smoke with asthma symptoms in children (p 423-429); Paraskevi Xepapadaki, Yannis Manios, Theodoros Liarigkovinos, Evangelia Grammatikaki, Nikolaos Douladiris, Christine Kortsalioudaki, Nikolaos G. Papadopoulos; Pediatric Allergy and Immunology
Volume 20 Issue 5, Pages 423 - 429 (Published Online: 22 Jul 2009); ABSTRACT...

Reference: Passive smoking in pregnancy linked to asthma risk in children by Mark Cowen, MedWireNews, 7/24/2009.

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