Even the father’s smoking has negative consequences for the health of the child, according to the results of a study presented at the Congress of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) in Munich. Indeed, smoking cigarettes before the conception of a baby increases the risk that he will develop asthma later on.
Researchers at the University of Bergen conducted a study of 13,000 men and women to understand the links between smoking among fathers andasthma non-allergic to children.
Asthma is a chronic disease characterized by difficulty in breathing, accompanied or not by a dry cough, attacks of shortness of breath with blowing. The frequency and intensity of seizures varies over time and from person to person. Symptoms can appear several times a day or a week, such as twice a year, occur without a specific cause, worsen during physical exertion or at night. The first chronic childhood disease, asthma affects one in ten children, and its frequency has doubled in fifteen years.
The results of this survey reveal that theasthma non-allergic is significantly more common in children whose fathers smoked before conception. This risk increases with precocity (onset of smoking before the age of 15) and the duration of the father’s smoking.
“This is the first study to look at the effect of smoking history, before conception, on the respiratory health of the child,” explains Dr. Cécile Svanes, co-author of the study.
“Based on the original results of this survey, we can assume that exposure to any type of air pollution, (occupational chemicals), can also have negative effects on children’s health. Healthcare professionals are focusing on interventions targeting young men and warning them of the dangers of smoking and other exposures to their unborn children in the future, ”concludes the researcher.
