Tobacco.org

AAAAI: Fetal Tobacco Exposure Promotes Asthma  

Action Points

Explain to interested patients that the triggers for asthma are not well understood but the disease is now believed to result from a combination of genetic susceptibility and environmental factors, which are now being sorted out.

Explain that this study, suggests that a pregnant woman's smoking can affect a child's risk of developing athsma. So cessation is especially recommended during pregnancy and after delivery to avoid exposing fetuses and infants to tobacco metabolites and secondhand smoke.

Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. NEW ORLEANS -- Maternal smoking during pregnancy may exert a more powerful influence on asthma development in children than postnatal secondhand smoke or breastfeeding by smoking moms, researchers said here. Children of different ethnicities with exposure in utero to tobacco smoking were at nearly six times as likely to develop persistent asthma than children whose moms didn't smoke during pregnancy, according to Sarena Apte, MD, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. . . .

Source reference:

Apte S, et al "Childhood persistent asthma after in utero tobacco exposure in Mexican, Puerto Rican, and African Americans" J Allergy Clin Immunol 2010; 125: AB57.

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