Grandmothers' Smoking Habit Has Detrimental Effect on the Growth of Grandchildren

Researchers have found that smoking during pregnancy has a detrimental effect on the growth of the grandchildren.

Worldwide nearly 250 million women smoke daily. In the U.S. 12 percent of the women continue to smoke during pregnancy, leading to the birth of 400,000 smoke-exposed infants being born per year in the U.S. alone. For the first time, a UK based study showed how maternal smoking can affect the growth of third generation offspring.

"These likely transgenerational effects from the grandmothers' smoking in pregnancy need to be taken into account in future studies of the effects of maternal smoking on child growth and development. If replicated, such studies could be a useful model for the molecular analysis of human transgenerational responses," said senior author Prof. Marcus Pembrey.

Even if the mothers were non-smokers, paternal grandmother who smoked during pregnancy had granddaughters that were taller and both the grandsons and granddaughters had greater bone mass and lean (muscle) mass.

If the maternal grandmother smoked during pregnancy, their grandsons gained excess body weight during adolescents with increased lean mass, grip strength and cardiovascular fitness. If both the mother and grandmother smoked, the girls had lower height and weight when compared to girls whose mothers smoked but not grandmothers.

A study conducted earlier at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) showed that maternal smoking caused third generation of offspring to suffer from chronic lung disease. Maternal smoking during pregnancy also caused conduct problems in offsprings. It also causes psychiatric problems in offpprings.

The finding was documented in the American Journal of Human Biology.