Smoking during pregnancy raises the risk of the baby developing schizophrenia

May 24, 2016

Madlen Davies for MailOnline

Published:
00:25 EST, 24 May 2016

|
Updated:
02:31 EST, 24 May 2016

View
comments

Mothers-to-be who smoke during pregnancy increase the risk of their children developing schizophrenia, a study has revealed.

Researchers found that the more women were exposed to nicotine the greater chance they had of having a child affected by the severe mental illness.

Signs of heavy nicotine exposure in a mother’s blood were associated with a 38 per cent increased likelihood of the condition.

Mothers-to-be who smoking during pregnancy increase the risk of their children developing schizophrenia, new research has revealed (file photo)

Scientists analysed data on 1,000 schizophrenia patients and matched their birth and health records with those of non-affected ‘control’ individuals.

They assessed their smoking habits were by looking at levels of a nicotine marker, cotinine, in their blood.

Based on this measurement, 20 per cent of mothers of schizophrenia patients were found to have smoked heavily while pregnant, compared with 14.7 per cent of mothers of controls.

What aren’t women who take the new contraceptive pill being…

The best way to manage blood pressure? Drink beetroot juice,…

Asking your doctor for another antibiotics prescription? How…

Stomach cramps and diarrhoea – even on a wheat-free diet?…

Smoking when expecting is known to contribute to significant problems in the womb and following birth, including low birth weight and attentional difficulties.

Nicotine is known to cross the placenta easily and enter the foetal bloodstream, leading to neurodevelopmental abnormalities.

Senior researcher Professor Alan Brown, from the University of Columbia, New York, said: ‘To our knowledge, this is the first biomarker-based study to show a relationship between foetal nicotine exposure and schizophrenia.’

Women participating in the study had been recruited into the Finnish Prenatal Study of Schizophrenia.

Signs of heavy nicotine exposure in a mother’s blood were associated with a 38 per cent increased likelihood of the child having schizophrenia, researchers found

Blood tests were carried out during the first and early second trimesters (three month periods) of pregnancy.

Professor Brown said: ‘These findings underscore the value of ongoing public health education on the potentially debilitating, and largely preventable, consequences that smoking may have on children over time.

‘Future studies on maternal smoking and other environmental, genetic, and epigenetic factors, as well as animal models, should allow identification of the biological mechanisms responsible for these associations.

‘Finally, it is of interest to examine maternal cotinine in relation to bipolar disorder, autism, and other psychiatric disorders. ‘

In a previous study, Professor Brown and his colleagues showed that offspring of mothers who smoked while pregnant have an increased risk of bipolar disorder.

The research was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.