Mothers who smoke during pregnancy put their children at greater risk of developing psychotic symptoms as teenagers, British scientists said today.
A UK survey of 12-year-olds found those whose mothers smoked were 20 per cent more likely to have psychotic-like symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions.
The researchers from four British universities found the link was 84 per cent more pronounced if mothers smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day.
Many previous studies have shown cigarettes can harm the foetuses of mothers who smoke while pregnant. The risks include causing babies to be born smaller and increasing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome or heart defects.
Despite countless studies flagging up the risks to babies, it is estimated up to one in five women in Britain smoke during pregnancy.
Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University’s School of Medicine who led the study, said the more the mothers smoked, the more likely their children were to have psychotic symptoms.
‘We can estimate that about 20 percent of adolescents in this cohort would not have developed psychotic symptoms if their mothers had not smoked,’ he said.
Dr Zammit and colleagues suggested that exposure to tobacco in the womb might affect a child’s brain function that governs attention and cognition. They added further research was needed
Only a few mothers in the study, which was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, said they had smoked cannabis during pregnancy, and this was not found to have any significant link with psychotic symptoms.
The researchers also found drinking during pregnancy was associated with increased psychotic symptoms, but only in children whose mothers had drunk more than 21 units of alcohol a week in early pregnancy.
