Does Prenatal Smoking Produce Unruly Kids?
THURSDAY, Jan. 9 (HealthScoutNews) — A woman’s smoking during pregnancy can’t necessarily be tied to later behavioral problems in her adolescent children, a new study says. The finding by Virginia Commonwealth University researchers conflicts with the conclusions of at least 15 previous studies. Instead, the VCU researchers say they found a link between adolescent behavior problems and the mother’s own “antisocial behavior” — which may have caused her to smoke during her pregnancy in the first place. “You might hypothesize that a woman who smokes during her pregnancy — not one or two cigarettes a day but a pack or more — it says something about her,” says study author Judy L. Silberg. “She may have some antisocial traits or conduct disorder traits. She knows it’s bad for her kid and she does it anyway,” adds Silberg, an assistant professor of human genetics and a researcher at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at VCU. Smoking during pregnancy has long b
