Louisiana Tobacco Control Program

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Secondhand smoke risks to fetuses increase in poverty environments

Publish date: Mar 28, 2004

Lacking life's basic necessities appears to amplify the ill effects fetuses suffer when their mothers are exposed to secondhand smoke. A new study from Neurotoxicology and Teratology included 226 children of Dominican and black women in New York City. The mothers did not smoke. Scientists from Columbia University and the Southwest Research Institute measured the mothers' exposure to secondhand smoke and gauged the extent to which the household went without adequate food, housing and clothing. The children's mental development was evaluated at the age of 24 months. Forty percent had been exposed prenatally to smoke and had lower average mental- development scores than those who hadn't been exposed, the study found. Exposed children from households with material hardship had even lower ratings. The scientists caution that other factors affected by hardship, such as parent-child interaction, may play a role.