A recent study states that women who smoke during pregnancy usually have children who get low reading scores.
Researchers from the Yale School of Medicine found that children who were born to mothers who smoked more than one pack of cigarettes a day during pregnancy, struggled to achieve good reading scores and this also affected the child's ability to read out loud.
Lead author Dr. Jeffrey Gruen, professor of pediatrics and genetics at Yale School of Medicine analyzed the data and reading scores of more than 5,000 children who were involved in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Gruen and his team or researchers compared performance on seven specific tasks that included word recognition, spelling, reading skills and reading comprehension and the effect maternal smoking habits had on these tasks.
The findings suggested that on an average, children exposed to high levels of nicotine while in the womb struggled to get good reading scores and this also affected the child's ability to read out loud.
"It's not a little difference -- it's a big difference in accuracy and comprehension at a critical time when children are being assessed, and are getting a sense of what it means to be successful," said Dr. Gruen, who also points out that the effects of smoking in pregnancy are especially pronounced in children with an underlying phonological (i.e., speech) deficit, suggesting an interaction between an environmental exposure (smoking) and a highly heritable trait (phonological ability).
"The interaction between nicotine exposure and phonology suggests a significant gene-by-environment interaction, making children with an underlying phonological deficit particularly vulnerable," he said.
Previously, a similar study stated that the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy even in moderate levels has a direct effect on the child's IQ level.
"Even at levels of alcohol consumption which are normally considered to be harmless, we can detect differences in childhood IQ which are dependent on the ability of the foetus to clear this alcohol," Sarah Lewis of Bristol University, who led the study, said.
