Smoking during pregnancy can cause premature puberty in children

London : Future mothers, take note! According to one study, smoking during pregnancy could prevent puberty from becoming an early child.

The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, examined data collected from 15,819 pregnant women and their children in total.

During pregnancy, women were asked about their smoking habits. Then, the children were followed and filled in 83,810 questionnaires on their pubertal development from 11 years and every six months thereafter.

"We found that children of mothers who smoked more than ten cigarettes a day during their pregnancy, on average, entered puberty three to six months earlier than children of non-smokers," said Nis Brix , from Aarhus University in Denmark.

"Early puberty may be badociated with an increased risk of developing several diseases in adulthood, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain types of cancer," said Brix .

In collaboration with his colleagues, he uses to identify the causes of puberty to prevent it.

"Smoking is known to be badociated with, among other things, increased risk of low birth weight, premature birth and increased mortality," said Brix.

"So there is a wide range of other good reasons to give you smoking before pregnancy, and we hope that our results can be used as an additional motivator to stop smoking in women who are considering pregnancy, "he said.

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