Link found between smoking while pregnant and adolescent psychoses

October 7, 2009 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News, Pregnancy

Long-term UK study shows mothers that smoke while pregnant put their child at risk for having psychotic symptoms later in adolescence.

Doctors have long warned expectant mothers against drinking and smoking while pregnant, but despite those warnings, some mothers still make the decision to drink, smoke or do both. However, recently published study results provide doctors with more reasons to dissuade mums from putting these potentially harmful things into their bodies while pregnant.

The study, conducted by multiple researchers from Cardiff, Bristol, Nottingham and Warwick Universities, focuses on a group of more than 6000 12-year-old participants. These children are the progeny of a group of over 14,000 mothers who enrolled in the study while they were pregnant. All the children were interviewed by researchers who assessed whether or not the children had legitimate symptoms of a psychosis. Over 11 percent of the children were found to have these sorts of symptoms.

Digging further, researchers then found that a link exists between the children that suffered psychotic symptoms and how much their mothers smoked during pregnancy. The more a mother smoked, the higher the risk her child would have psychoses in adolescence.

Researchers also investigated the group of children to see if there was any link to the psychotic behavior and the maternal consumption of cannabis and alcohol. Few mothers said they had maternally smoked cannabis, and no direct link was found. However, there was some evidence that mothers who drank “more than 21 units a week” while pregnant may have contributed to their children’s psychoses.

While the cause for this link is currently unclear, lead researcher Dr. Stanley Zammit theorizes that it is somehow related to a part of the brain that regulates both attention and cognition.

Zammit added that if a true cause and effect relationship exists, then nearly “20 per cent of adolescents in this cohort would not have developed psychotic symptoms if their mothers had not smoked.”

The researchers claim that more work must be done and more data collected. However, if their findings prove to be valid, then doctors will have additional evidence to compel pregnant mothers to put down their cigarettes and alcohol not only for their future child’s benefit, but also for their own benefit.