Early childhood exposure to maternal smoking and behavioral development

Abstract

We examined the association between early childhood exposure to maternal smoking and behavioral issues at 8 years old using a large nationwide population-based longitudinal survey in Japan that began in 2001. We included 46,737 children with information about maternal smoking taken from the 6-month survey. We used logistic regression analysis to examine the hypothesis. Early childhood exposure to maternal smoking increased the risk of behavioral problems related to attention and aggressive or disruptive behavior. The adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) were 1.37 (1.22–1.54) for inability to wait their turn during play and 1.40 (1.27–1.55) for destroying toys and, compared with children of nonsmoking mothers. Children of mothers who were heavy smokers were more likely to develop behavioral problems than others. Stopping early childhood exposure to maternal exposure can protect children’s neurodevelopment.

Keywords:

• Early childhood exposure
• Epidemiology
• Smoking
• behavioral problems

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the valuable support of Saori Irie and Yoko Oka in collecting the data and preparing for the manuscript. We also thank Melissa Leffler, MBA, from Edanz Group (https://en-author-services.edanzgroup.com/ac) for editing a draft of this manuscript.

Ethics

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee at Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Okayama University Hospital (No. K1506-073).

Conflicts of interests

The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 20K10498. The sponsor has had no involvement in the study design, the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, the writing of the report, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.