The Little Blue Book

There is extensive published clinical research showing the dangers for foetal growth and development from cigarette smoking by women during pregnancy. Reduced birth-weight, delayed mental and physical development and increased risk for diseases and behavioural disorders later in life, are among the poor child-health outcomes repeatedly confirmed by this research. Similarly, there is strong evidence of increased risk for miscarriage and preterm delivery for women who smoke, as well as increased risk of respiratory disease, asthma, allergies and weakened immune system in the children of smokers. It also carries cognitive child-health risks including delayed verbal learning (speech) and auditory processing (understanding) as well as increased risk of conduct disorder and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). As easily as it crosses the blood-brain barrier in the smoker, nicotine crosses the placenta, resulting in concentrations of nicotine in the developing foetus up to 15% higher than concentrations in the mother. 1 Dangers of smoking during pregnancy Its sinister effects on children The relatively new science of epigenetics, however, points to a more sinister outcome for children born to mothers who smoke. Our genes, we know, are responsible for the person we become – our physical appearance, health, the strength of our immune systems, our predispositions, and a whole lot of other things that make us, “us” – who we are. We sometimes talk about people as having “good genes”, blessed with good health, good looks, intelligence or other inherited characteristics carried through the genes. But what the science of epigenetics tells us is that our genes and DNA are not ‘fixed’, not static – that they can be ‘modified’ by lifestyle, diet, exposure to psychological stress or trauma and other life events. In other words, that our DNA can be subtly damaged – leaving ‘markers’ on our genes – by the way we live, and the course of our lives. And that these changes to the gene expression (i.e. the information from the gene) can be passed to our children, and even to the next generation, to their children. 1 It has been well-documented and supported by countless studies that the children of smokers or heavy drinkers are themselves at increased risk of addiction disorders. Likewise, the children of obese parents are more likely to themselves be obese. Epigenetics tells us, however, that these ‘vulnerabilities’ – to addiction, to obesity, to stress disorders – are not simply a result of learning and copying the habits and behaviours children observe in parents and the family environment. But that the vulnerabilities are given to our children, at the moment of conception, through our genes. In other words, if we smoke, drink heavily or eat to excess, these behaviours become part of the genetic legacy we pass to our children and to their children. That alone, surely, is reason enough to seriously consider getting cigarettes out of our lives (and to examine all of our choices around drugs and alcohol). RECOGNISING DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND OTHER DISORDERS 76