Smoking During Pregnancy Can Alter Baby's DNA, Study Shows

A new study reveals another reason why pregnant women should not smoke. The study shows that smoking can alter the baby's DNA as well as compromise the baby's growth and development. Mothers who smoke while pregnant may expose their children to a lifetime of chronic conditions and physical deformation.

Smoking Alters Baby's DNA

A study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics found that smoking can cause changes in the baby's DNA via in-utero exposure. Researchers analyzed the DNA of more than 6,000 mothers and their newborn babies. In the 13 percent of women who smoked during their pregnancy, they identified more than 6,000 genetic differences in their child's DNA compared to nonsmoking women and their babies.

"I find it kind of amazing when we see these epigenetic signals in newborns, from in utero exposure, lighting up the same genes as an adult's own cigarette smoking," co-author Stephanie London from the National Institutes of Health said via Science Daily. "This is a blood-borne exposure to smoking—the fetus isn't breathing it, but many of the same things are going to be passing through the placenta."

The Bump reports that the tobacco cigarette's harmful ingredients like tar, carbon monoxide and nicotine pass from mother to baby. Furthermore, the baby's source of clean oxygen is also compromised when their mother smokes.

The study did not prove that maternal smoking causes adverse health complications in children. However, the DNA differences suggest that it may contribute to known birth defects and medical conditions in babies born from mothers who smoke.

Adverse Health Effects of Maternal Smoking In Infants

Researchers know that maternal smoking can cause cleft life and palate as well as low birth weight in babies. Furthermore, Baby Center shares that infants may also be at risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and other birth defects include heart conditions, asthma, and learning disorders.

The findings are especially alarming as there are a significant number of women that still smoke during pregnancy in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that around 10 percent of women said that they have smoked during the last trimester of their pregnancy taken from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System survey conducted in 2011.