ArticleBMJ open2014
Is the growth of the child of a smoking mother influenced by the father's prenatal exposure to tobacco? A hypothesis generating longitudinal study.
Article in BMJ open, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Transgenerational consequences of grandparents' smoking on grandchildren's development: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- Paternal nicotine taking elicits heritable sex-specific phenotypes that are mediated by hippocampal Satb2.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Article
- Paternal grandmother's smoking in pregnancy is associated with extreme aversion to bitter taste in their grandchildren.Environmental epigenetics · 2022Article
- Grandchild's IQ is associated with grandparental environments prior to the birth of the parents.Wellcome open research · 2020Article
- All in the Family: What Multigenerational Cohorts Are Revealing about Potential Environmental Impacts on Neurodevelopment.Environmental health perspectives · 2019Article
- Transgenerational epigenetics and environmental justice.Environmental epigenetics · 2017Review
- Grand-maternal smoking in pregnancy and grandchild's autistic traits and diagnosed autism.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Prenatal Smoke Exposure and ADHD: Advancing the Field.Pediatrics · 2017Article
- The anthropometry of children and adolescents may be influenced by the prenatal smoking habits of their grandmothers: a longitudinal cohort study.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology CouncilArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTransgenerational effects of different environmental exposures are of major interest, with rodent experiments focusing on epigenetic mechanisms. Previously, we have shown that if the study mother is a non-smoker, there is increased mean birth weight, length and body mass index (BMI) in her sons if she herself had been exposed prenatally to her mother's smoking. The aim of this study was to determine whether the prenatal smoke exposure of either parent influenced the growth of the fetus of a smoking woman, and whether any effects were dependent on the fetal sex.
designPopulation-based prebirth cohort study.
settingAvon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.
participantsParticipants were residents of a geographic area with expected date of delivery between April 1991 and December 1992. Among pregnancies of mothers who smoked during pregnancy, data were available concerning maternal and paternal prenatal exposures to their own mother smoking for 3502 and 2354, respectively. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Birth weight, length, BMI and head circumference.
resultsAfter controlling for confounders, there were no associations with birth weight, length or BMI. There was a strong adjusted association of birth head circumference among boys whose fathers had been exposed prenatally (mean difference -0.35 cm; 95% CI -0.57 to -0.14; p=0.001). There was no such association with girls (interaction p=0.006). Similar associations were found when primiparae and multiparae were analysed separately. In order to determine whether this was reflected in child development, we examined the relationships with IQ; we found that the boys born to exposed fathers had lower IQ scores on average, and that this was particularly due to the verbal component (mean difference in verbal IQ -3.65 points; 95% CI -6.60 to -0.70).
conclusionsHead size differences concerning paternal fetal exposure to smoking were unexpected and, as such, should be regarded as hypothesis generating.
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