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Excerpts from: Smoking During Pregnancy Linked to Kids' Obesity

By Charnicia E. Huggins Reuters Health [11/21/02]
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology 2002;156:954-961 

These findings give prospective mothers one more reason to kick the smoking habit, according to lead study author Dr. Rudiger von Kries of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.

"Women at risk of becoming pregnant should stop smoking--not only to reduce the well established risks of perinatal morbidity, sudden infant death syndrome, childhood asthma but also--and this is new--to reduce the risk for obesity in offspring," von Kries told Reuters Health.

His findings are based on an analysis of 1999-2000 data from 6,483 children whose parents--mother, father or both--completed school entry health questionnaires in six German communities. .

Overall, 638 mothers smoked during pregnancy, and their children were twice as likely to be obese and 43% more likely to be overweight than children of nonsmoking mothers, the investigators report in the November 15th issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.