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• Smoking In Pregnancy Causes Many Child Asthma Cases 

Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in the womb increased the rate of physician-diagnosed asthma in young persons while current ETS exposure was associated with wheezing but not with physician-diagnosed asthma.

Researchers who studied 5,762 school-aged children residing in 12 Southern California communities made this significant finding.

Writing in the February issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Frank D. Gilliland, M.D.,Ph.D., and two associates from the Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, studied responses to a self-administered questionnaire completed by the parents of 4th, 7th, and 10th grade students to ascertain which children either wheezed or had physician-diagnosed asthma. . .

In remarking about the public health significance of their findings, the investigators estimated that the elimination of in utero exposure of fetuses to maternal smoking would prevent 5 to 15 percent of asthma cases in children.

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