Tobacco Smoke

While it may seem to be a common perception at this point, the fact remains that the effects of smoking during pregnancy has far less data to back up a link to asthma development than smoking around children after birth. A recent study conducted by the UCSF Center for Tobacco Research and Education added solid findings to put some empirical data behind this belief.

In an article to be published in the upcoming edition of The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, researchers link smoking during pregnancy, particularly in African American and Latino populations, to an increased risk to the development of acute asthma in children. Even children who are over ten years removed from exposure to tobacco smoke during pregnancy show the effects of smoking and demonstrate the increased risk of acute asthma.

Many mothers-to-be smoke during pregnancy, quit, but the data from the study showed regardless of if they quit during pregnancy there were still far reaching consequences to smoking at all during this time. This study focused on women of color not only because of the increased rates of smoking amongst those populations but also because these groups tended to smoke more often during pregnancy and were often slower to quit

This link between higher rates of smoking by women in these communities are one possible reason why the mortality rate of asthma disproportionately effects African Americans.

Though the exact mechanisms or changes in the DNA that correlate with the development of asthma in children from mothers who smoke is still unknown, this study highlights the need to greater awareness among all mothers-to-be about the risk of smoking while pregnant.