Children showed signs of kidney damage if their mothers smoked while pregnant, according to research published in Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). According to results, maternal smoking during pregnancy was associated with a 1.24-times increased risk of child proteinuria compared with no exposure to maternal smoking during pregnancy.
The researchers conducted a population-based retrospective study using a database of health check-ups from pregnancy to 3 years of age in Japan. The investigators looked for the presence of proteinuria — or elevated protein the urine, which is a sign of reduced kidney function — in urinary tests from 44,595 children.
In the population examined, 4.4% of women smoked only before pregnancy and 16.7% continued smoking while pregnant. The frequencies of proteinuria in the child at age 3 were 1.7% when mothers continued to smoke during pregnancy, 1.6% when mothers stopped smoking during pregnancy, and 1.3% when mothers were nonsmokers, respectively.
