Smoking can damage babies' arteries

WASHINGTON - People whose mothers smoked during pregnancy may be more likely to have damaged carotid arteries that could predispose them to heart attack and stroke, Dutch researchers said yesterday.

Previous research had established several health hazards for babies of mothers who smoked while pregnant, including low birth weight.

The study involved 732 young adults - average age 28 - from Utrecht in the Netherlands, of whom 29 percent had mothers who smoked during pregnancy. Ultrasound was used to measure the thickness of the lining of their carotid arteries in the neck.

The lining inside the arteries was 3 percent thicker in subjects whose mothers smoked in pregnancy, said researchers in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

Thicker artery linings are a first step toward atherosclerosis, the so-called hardening of the arteries in which fatty plaque builds up, restricts blood flow, and can break off to cause a heart attack or stroke. The study also showed that these children were heavier in adolescence.

REUTERS