Pregnant Smokers Harden Arteries

Research suggests that smoking during pregnancy can put kids at risk for obesity and heart disease.

A recently published study from the Netherlands confirms what we’ve now known for some time: smoking during pregnancy is really, really bad for kids. Scientists found that women who smoked during pregnancy produced kids with significantly thicker and denser arteries, which are associated with the risk of obesity and heart disease. These effects were discovered by ultrasound when the babies were a month old and remained in effect when the kids were retested at age five. The damage was worst when both parents smoked during pregnancy, and was not found in cases where the mother quit smoking during gestation and resumed after birth. The study has been in the works for 10 years and will continue to measure the effects of gestational smoking.