FED: Thousands can blame Mums smoking for asthma study

AAP General News (Australia)
12-16-1998
FED: Thousands can blame Mums smoking for asthma study

By Rada Rouse, National Medical Correspondent

BRISBANE, Dec 16 AAP - Some 30,000 Australian children suffer asthma or wheezing solely
because their mothers smoke, research shows.

The first broadbased Australian study of respiratory illness and parental smoking found 13
per cent of asthma wheeze in children aged up to four years could be attributed to Mums
smoking habit.

This means that in 1991 some 30,918 children were affected, researchers Susan Lister and
Louisa Jorm reported in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.

Although smoking has declined since the 1980s, there was evidence of a recent upswing by
young people, they said.

"This study confirms maternal smoking is an important health risk for children," Ms Lister
told AAP.

"The results imply that if young children were not exposed to maternal smoking - which is a
largely preventable risk factor - there would be almost 13 per cent fewer cases of asthma or
asthma wheeze in Australia in the 0-4 age group."

Ms Lister, from New Childrens Hospital, and Dr Jorm, from the NSW Health Department, used
data from the 1989-90 Australian Bureau of Statistics National Health Survey to find links
between respiratory illness and parental smoking in a sample of the ordinary population.

Similar studies have been based on hospital data.

The researchers found that among 4,281 children aged zero to four years, some 45 per cent
lived in families with one or more current smokers.

Almost half the children exposed to maternal smoking had mothers who smoked 15 or more
cigarettes a day - and the more the mother smoked, the greater the likelihood of asthma
symptoms.

"Children with a mother who smoked fewer than 15 cigarettes a day had a 38 per cent
increased chance of asthma wheeze compared to children of non-smokers," they said.

"Children of mothers smoking 15 or more cigarettes a day were 70 per cent more likely to
have asthma wheeze."

Analysis of the data showed that smoking by mothers - the main carers - had a greater
effect on the young children - who may also have been exposed in the womb - than smoking by
fathers.

AAP rr/sd/cfm

KEYWORD: ASTHMA

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