The cause of aggression in children can be smoking mother during pregnancy?

Imagine a pregnant woman who takes a long time with a cigarette. Surely, a premature baby with a very low weight, who struggles with difficulty for his first sip of clean air, will immediately come to mind. However, it's unlikely that an aggressive child comes to your mind. New research data demonstrate that smoking and pregnancy are incompatible, since a bad habit is the cause of aggression in children.

Relationship between the smoking of mothers and the aggression of children

Similar conclusions are drawn on the basis of a study that is part of a larger monitoring, in which the behavior of 1,745 children aged 18 months to three and a half years was considered. As an aggressive behavior, bites, hands and feet, as well as an aggressive reaction to other children were considered. Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Montreal Jean Seguin, who is also a co-author of the study, said about smoking pregnant women: "During pregnancy this is a bad decision. Smoking has an impact on the child's nervous system in a variety of ways, and aggression is one of its manifestations. Because of the child's smoking, the result is much more difficult to control. "

Results of the study

In the course of the study, some interesting indicators were considered. In future mothers with a history of antisocial behavior, which smoked at least ten cigarettes a day, the likelihood that their child will be aggressive increased by 67 percent. Those mothers who smoked less than ten cigarettes a day or did not smoke at all, the risk was minimal - only 16 percent. The study also showed that smoking brought more aggressive children to families whose annual income was less than forty thousand dollars a year. With this income, heavy smokers received a 40 percent risk that their children would be aggressive, while those families in which income exceeded this figure could be calm: for them, this percentage was only 8 percent.