Who believes that Smoking in pregnancy risks psychotic children?
LONDON (Reuters) – Mothers who smoke during pregnancy put their children at greater risk of developing psychotic symptoms as teenagers, British scientists said on Thursday. Researchers from four British universities studied 6,356 12-year-olds and interviewed them for psychotic-like symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions. Around 19 percent had mothers who smoked during pregnancy. Just over 11 percent, or 734 of the total group, had suspected or definite symptoms of psychosis. Many previous studies have shown cigarettes can harm the fetuses of mothers who smoke while pregnant. The risks include causing babies to be born smaller and increasing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome or heart defects. Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University’s School of Medicine who led the study, said the more the mothers smoked, the more likely their children were to have psychotic symptoms.
