Moms' Second Hand Smoke Exposure Linked to Psych. Problems in Kids
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 06.29.07
While we’ve discussed the environmental impacts of smoking and programs that some have undertaken to combat those problems before, researchers at the University of Washington have concluded in a recent study that children whose mothers were exposed to second-hand smoke while pregnant have more symptoms of serious psychological problems than the offspring of those women who had no prenatal exposure at all... In the current issue of Child Psychiatry and Human Development, UW psychologists Lisa Gatzke-Kopp and Theodore Beauchaine provided the first evidence linking moms’ second-hand smoke exposure while pregnant to their children’s attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder after controlling for a variety of factors. And while many of us are familiar with the terms, the symptoms include aggressive behavior, ADHD, defiance and conduct disorder, which encompasses truancy, fighting, failing in school, general breaking of rules, substance abuse, stealing, and the destruction of property. Intriguingly, the same kids exhibiting these issues did not show an increase in the symptoms of emotional disorders such as depression or anxiety which this group of researchers couldn’t explain. The compound that’s suspected to be the causing the damage is nicotine, and animal studies have shown that it affects brain development during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, which causes changes in brain regions critical to the development of what researchers call “externalizing psychopathology” in humans. It looks to me like just one more good reason to stay as far from second-hand smoke as possible…
Where I may I find more info on this?
What a pile of crock.
Their conclusion is most likely completely wrong. A better explanation is that children from smoking parents more often have psycho disorders, because they inherited those from their parents, which were more likely to smoke to begin with.
It's known for years that mental patients are more likely to smoke. Anti-smoking lobby groups often used this fact to blame smoking for psychic problems, but it's the other way around. Mental patients smoke because it actually helps them, it's self medication in a way. That is also why mental hospitals often are excluded from smoking bans.
A lot of mental disorders, like schizophrenia, depressions and ADHD, are linked to an unbalance of the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. And nicotine positively changes the dopamine/serotonin levels.
For example ADHD, presumable caused by a dopamine shortage. is often treated by Ritalin, which later studies revealed it increases dopamine levels. Just as smoking would, and studies confirmed that ADHD patients benefited just as much from nicotine as they would have from Ritalin.
ADHD is linked to different gene mutations, which means it is not a disease or virus you can get, but you are born with it. And the same goes more or less for the other mental disorders. Like schizophrenia for example, it's already there, it just needs to get triggered. Good quantities of drugs could do the trick, but it also explains why those newer quit smoking medicines (Zyban and Chantix) that works as neuro blockers, can cause acute psychosis.
The nicotine-dopamine relationship also explains why some long time smokers can quit easily and without side effects, and others not.
It's also the question whether ADHD is a disorder, you listed negative behaviour only, but the same traits that triggers such, could also have been evolutionary beneficial.
And how many other factors were these pregnant women exposed to? This sort of junk science is embarrassing.
The protocol isolates one factor that supports what they're looking for, in defiance of common sense: In the mid-20th century nearly every pregnant woman lived with first- or secondhand smoke. Why aren't older people all stark raving loony??