Canadian Researchers Find Link Between Smoking During Pregnancy And Agression In Children

Montreal, Canada (AHN) - Researchers have found that women who smoke during pregnancy risk delivering aggressive kids.

Previous studies showed that smoking during pregnancy results in low birth weight, but this new study by this research found that expectant mothers who smoke can predispose their offspring to the additional risk of violent behavior.

The Canada-Netherlands study is published in the journal Development and Psychopathology.

Psychiatry professor and researcher Jean Séguin, of the Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center, co-authored the study. They were assisted by postdoctoral fellow Stephan C. J. Huijbregts, who is now a researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands, as well as by colleagues from Université Laval and McGill University in Canada.

"Mothers-to-be whose lives have been marked by anti-social behaviour have a 67 percent chance to have a physically aggressive child if they smoke 10 cigarettes a day while pregnant, compared with 16 percent for those who are non-smokers or who smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes a day," Dr. Séguin said in a statement. "Smoking also seems to be an aggravating factor, although less pronounced, in mothers whose anti-social behavior is negligible or zero."

Additionally, they found there was an increased risk of giving birth to aggressive children for mothers with a family income of less than $40,000.