Study Finds: Smoking During Pregnancy Linked to Criminality of Male Offspring

Maternal smoking during pregnancy predicts persistent criminality and acts of violent crimes rather than delinquency limited to adolescence, according to an article published in the AMA’s Archives of General Psychiatry.

Researchers studied the arrest histories at age 34 years of 4,169 males born between September 1959 and December 1961 in Copenhagen, Denmark, to examine maternal smoking during pregnancy as a predictor of offspring crime.  The authors found a dose-response relationship between the amount of maternal prenatal smoking and arrests for nonviolent and violent crimes.

Persistent and violent criminal offending have serious deleterious [harmful] effects on society, conclude the authors.  Our results therefore suggest an additional critical reason to support public health efforts aimed at improving maternal health behaviors during pregnancy. The authors add that potential physiologic or central nervous system mediators between maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring criminal outcomes need further study.

In a commentary in the same issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, David M. Fergusson, Ph.D., believes it is premature to conclude that maternal prenatal smoking can now be included among the established risk factors for later antisocial behavior.  However, after more research has been conducted in this area, Fergusson believes antisocial behavior may be added to the list of established adverse consequences of smoking during pregnancy.