Smoking mums perk up kids' cancer risk

Melbourne, Australia, January 12: Babies born to smoking mothers are up to five times more likely to develop childhood cancers, a new Australian research warns.

While birth complications like, premature delivery and low birth weight are already well associated with smoking during pregnancy, the research embarked at Australia's New South Wales Cancerdefine Institute found that life-threatening cancers like leukemia (cancer of the blood or bone marrow), cancer of the brain or central nervous system, kidney and eye cancers were common in children, whose mothers smoked during pregnancy.

For the study, researchers zeroed in on 1.05 million births recorded across New South Wales between 1994 and 2005. Simultaneously, cases of cancer in children during the same period were also assessed.

948 cases of childhood cancer were detected of the lot.

A closer assessment revealed that babies with low birth weight, the most common smoking-pregnancy complication, heightened the babies’ risk of developing leukemia by 1.7 times. Likewise, it increased the risk of developing cancer of the brain or central nervous system by 1.8 times.

Newborns who, required immediate ICU care were at the highest risk. They stood at 2.7 times higher risk of developing any form of malignancy. Also, their eye cancer risk was 4 times and kidney cancer risk was 5 times higher, as opposed to children born to mothers who abstained smoking during pregnancy.

While the exact implications of smoking during pregnancy and childhood cancers are yet to be completely assessed, researchers advise pregnant women not to smoke.

"We've not yet made the direct link between pregnancy and smoking and those poor outcomes leading to childhood cancers," Professor Jim Bishop chief executive of the of the New South Wales Cancer Institute noted, “but it's clear that we can do something about those complications and that is not to smoke during pregnancy."

"Everybody knows that smoking causes cancer, stroke, heart disease and emphysema but all mothers and mums-to-be should also understand the potential damage to a child caused by prenatal smoking," Minister for Medical Research, Jodi McKay, emphasized.