Beware, smoking father could lead their unborn baby to have asthma

News24xx.com - In a report in Frontiers in Genetics 2019, senior researcher Dr.Kuender Yang of the National Defense Medical Center, Taiwan, looked at data from 756 infants over six years. Researchers compared the prevalence of asthma in children whose fathers smoke during the pregnancy period.

In general, 31 percent of children with smokers' fathers are exposed to asthma by the age of 6. This number is higher than children with nonsmoker father which only 23 percent.

Researchers say the more the father smokes, the higher the prevalence of asthma in children. In the group of fathers who smoke heavily the incidence of asthma in children can reach 35 percent.

"Children exposed to the smoke from smoker fathers who consume more than 20 cigarettes per day have a significant risk of asthma compared to those who are exposed to smoke less than 20 cigarettes per day, or not at all" Dr.Kuender wrote as quoted by Reuters on Saturday, June 15th 2019.

The researchers also examined deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from the child's umbilical cord blood shortly after birth. The results found more changes in substances called methylation in children with smokers' fathers. Researcher Dr.Avni Joshi from the Mayo Clinic Children's Center commented that this study conveyed a clear message. "Smoking is bad before the baby is born and also afterwards" concluded Dr.Avni.

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