Smoking During Pregnancy Seems to Alter Fetal DNA
Discovery could help explain link between expectant moms' tobacco use and kids' health problems
The researchers were also able to pinpoint new development-related genes that were affected by a mother-to-be's smoking.
The findings may help improve understanding about the connection between smoking during pregnancy and children's health problems, the study authors said.
For the study, researchers collected blood samples
from newborns, mainly from the umbilical cord. Compared to babies of
nonsmokers, those born to regular smokers had over 6,000 spots where DNA
was chemically modified.
About half of those locations could be linked to
specific genes, including those involved in lung and nervous system
development, birth defects such as cleft lip and palate, and smoking-related cancers.
The investigators also found that many of these DNA
changes were still present in older children whose mothers had smoked
during pregnancy.
The study was published March 31 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Smaller studies have found links between smoking
during pregnancy and chemical changes in fetal DNA, the authors of the
new study noted. But this large study, which included over 6,000 mothers
and their children, improved the researchers' ability to detect
patterns.
"I find it kind of amazing when we see these
epigenetic signals in newborns, from in utero exposure, lighting up the
same genes as an adult's own cigarette smoking. There's a lot of
overlap," study co-senior author Stephanie London said in a journal news
release. She is an epidemiologist and physician at the U.S. National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
"This is a blood-borne exposure to smoking -- the fetus isn't breathing it, but many of the same things are going to be passing through the placenta," London explained.
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