A new study by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) has found that the life-long effects of maternal smoking during pregnancy may occur through specific changes in DNA patterns.

Cigarette smoking during pregnancy is associated with potentially harmful changes in both maternal and fetal thyroid function, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Women who smoke during pregnancy risk delivering aggressive kids according to a new Canada-Netherlands study published in the journal Development and Psychopathology.

Previous studies have shown that babies exposed to tobacco in utero are more likely to have a low birth weight and are at increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome. Now new research by The Miriam Hospital reveals that these babies are also less likely to self-soothe and are more aroused and excitable than newborns whose mothers did not smoke during pregnancy.

This study is the first to show that high levels of prenatal smoking exposure strongly modify sleep patterns in preterm neonates, which may have serious consequences for the development of the infant’s brain

Babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were more than twice as likely to have a cleft palate or lip as those whose mothers didn't, according to research results released today.

Although many women quit smoking during pregnancy to protect their unborn children from the effects of cigarettes, half of them resume the habit within a few months of giving birth.

Despite public health campaigns, a surprising number of women continue to use substances such as tobacco, marijuana and alcohol during pregnancy and their usage rebounds to pre-pregnancy levels within two years of having a baby, according to a new University of Washington study.

Pregnant women who suffer from the high risk condition pre-eclampsia — which leads to the death of hundreds of babies every year — are putting the lives of their unborn children at significantly increased risk if they continue to smoke during pregnancy.

Smoking during pregnancy has many adverse effects on fetal development. A new study in mice by Andrea Jurisicova and colleagues at the University of Toronto, Canada, now adds the possibility that smoking before pregnancy or while breast-feeding might substantially decrease the fertility of female offspring to the long list of possible negative outcomes.

An anti-smoking group has raised concerns about the number of pregnant women who smoke. An Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report on mothers and babies based on figures collected in 2005 has found that 17.4 per cent of women admitted to smoking while they were pregnant.

Infants whose mothers smoke during pregnancy have substantially higher blood pressures in their first months of life, Dutch researchers reported in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.