Smoking during pregnancy appears to be a prenatal risk factor associated with conduct problems in children, according to a study recently published online by JAMA Psychiatry.
The paper drew upon data from three different studies, including an adoption-at-birth study conducted by researchers affiliated with the University of Oregon.
Conduct disorder represents an issue of significant social, clinical and practice concern, with evidence highlighting increasing rates of child conduct problems internationally. Maternal smoking during pregnancy is known to be a risk factor for offspring psychological problems, including attention deficits and conduct problems, the authors wrote.
Professor Gordon Harold and Dr. Darya Gaysina, of the University of Leicester, UK, and colleagues in the United States and New Zealand examined the relationship between maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring conduct problems among children raised by genetically related mothers and genetically unrelated mothers.
Three studies were used, including the Early Growth and Development Study –– an adoption study of birth parents and adoptive families that aims to understand the interplay between family and inherited contributions to child development during childhood.
The ongoing study led by Leslie Leve, professor of counseling psychology and human services at the UO and senior scientist for the Oregon Social Learning Center, is following 561 adoptive families from birth through age 9.
The other studies included the Christchurch Health and Development Study (a longitudinal cohort study that includes biological and adopted children) and the Cardiff IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) Study (an adoption-at-conception study among genetically related families and genetically unrelated families). Maternal smoking during pregnancy was measured as the average number of cigarettes per day smoked during pregnancy.
According to the study results, a significant association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring conduct problems was observed among children raised by genetically related mothers and genetically unrelated mothers. Results from a meta-analysis affirmed this pattern of findings across pooled study samples.
“Our findings suggest an association between pregnancy smoking and child conduct problems that is unlikely to be fully explained by postnatal environmental factors (i.e., parenting practices), even when postnatal passive genotype-environment correlation has been removed,” the authors wrote. “The causal explanation for the association between smoking in pregnancy and offspring conduct problems is not known but may include genetic factors and other prenatal environmental hazards, including smoking itself.”
- from the UO Office of Strategic Communications