Fresh evidence of perils of smoking while pregnant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Women who smoke while pregnant may cause permanent cardiovascular damage to their children that could heighten the offspring's risk for a stroke and heart attack, researchers said on Friday.

Doctors long have known about health dangers for babies whose mothers smoked while pregnant, but the new Dutch study showed that these children as young adults tended to have thicker walls of the carotid arteries in the neck.

This thickness can be used to determine a person's level of atherosclerosis, the process in which deposits build up in the inner lining of an artery, increasing the likelihood of stroke and heart attack.

"There are still substantial numbers of mothers who smoke during pregnancy," said Dr. Cuno Uiterwaal at the University Medical Center Utrecht. "This is just another reason for expectant mothers not to smoke."

Uiterwaal's team examined 732 people who were born from 1970 to 1973.

They found that the children of the 215 women who had smoked while pregnant had thicker walls of the carotid arteries than children whose mothers did not smoke during pregnancy.

The people whose mothers had smoked the greatest number of cigarettes while pregnant had thicker arterial walls than those whose mothers smoked fewer cigarettes, they found.

"There is the possibility that the compounds in tobacco smoke go through the placenta and directly damage the cardiovascular system of the fetus," Uiterwaal said in a statement. "The damage appears to be permanent and stays with the children."

The findings were presented at an American Heart Association conference in Orlando.