Overweight smoker mums can damage baby's heart

Overweight smoker mums can damage baby's heart

Washington, Jan 31: Overweight smoking women who are soon going to deliver may give birth to a child with a congenital heart defects, a recently conducted study warns.

Congenital heart defects are some of the most common defects found at birth. Out of 1000 eight babies are born with this defect. A probable cause is only found in 1per cent of cases.

These findings are made after a study carried out on around 800 babies and foetuses born with congenital heart diseases but no other defects, between 1997 and 2008.

Further, these babies were compared with 322 children and foetuses born with chromosomal abnormalities, but without any heart abnormalities.

This study asserted increased damaging effect due to a combination of overweight and smoking in contrast to only one factor. This study also takes in to account other influential factors, like mother's alcohol consumption and educational attainment.

Soon-to-be mothers who both smoked and were overweight, with a BMI of 25 or more, were found 2.5 times more prone to deliver a child with a congenital heart defect as compared to women who were either smoked or were overweight, but not both.

The risk of outflow tract obstructive abnormalities is more than tripled in babies where overweight mothers-to-be smoked during pregnancy.

"These results indicate that maternal smoking and overweight may both be involved in the same pathway that causes congenital heart defects," the authors write.

The exact mode of action is still unknown, but researchers point to disturbances in plasma cholesterol, which is independently linked to obesity and smoking, that leads to lower levels of

These findings will substantiate the add to the growing evidences for the alleged links between smoking and overweight during pregnancy with, variously, miscarriage/stillbirth, stunted growth, and premature birth, according to research findings.

The finding has been published online in Heart.

--With inputs from ANI