New study finds smoking during first trimester has biggest impact
The link between smoking and asthma is well established but now a new study has found that mothers who smoke during the first trimester of their pregnancy increase their children’s risk of having breathing problems, even if the children are not exposed to smoke after they’re born.
The research, reported on Fox News, was carried out by scientists at the Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, who looked at the data of 21,000 children, some of whom were exposed to maternal smoking.
Overall, smoking during early pregnancy seemed to have the biggest impact during the first trimester, while smoking in the third trimester or first year of life did not have such an associated risk.
The results also showed a “significant dose-response pattern”, which means the more a mother smokes, the higher the likelihood her child will develop asthma.
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