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TOKYO: Children whose mothers smoked even in the
early stages of pregnancy are nearly three times more likely to
struggle with obesity later in life, according to a Japanese study.
While the study did not state an
exact correlation, one theory is that children whose mothers smoked
were deprived of nutrition in the womb.
The same study also found
children of mothers who had a habit of skipping breakfast during
pregnancy were 2.4 times more likely to be obese.
The survey was done over a period
of nearly two decades by a team led by Zentaro Yamagata, professor
at Yamanashi University’s School of Medicine.
It covered about 1,400 women in
Japan who gave birth between April 1991 and March 1997. The
researchers then collected data on about 1,000 of their children
until they entered fourth grade at age 9 or 10.
The risk of obesity was 2.9 times
higher among children whose mothers smoked when they were three
months pregnant or at an even earlier stage, as compared with
children of nonsmoking mothers, the study showed.
The results “indicate smoking
during pregnancy, even in the early stages, can affect the health of
children over a long period of time,” Yamagata said.
Researchers can “speculate”
that children who had been poorly fed in the womb would stock up on
nutrition after they were born, he said.
“But we don’t know the truth.
What is important here is to stop smoking,” he said.
There have been studies around
the world about the linkage between smoking during pregnancy and
child obesity, but continuous research on the same group of children
until they turn 10 is very rare, according to Yamagata.
The results of the study were
announced at a meeting of public health experts in Japan last week
and will be carried in a North American magazine to be published in
December.
 --AFP
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