Investigation of maternal smoke exposure and childhood obesity: A cross-sectional study

Introduction: Recent studies suggest that smoking exposure in pregnancy period might be a risk agent for childhood overweight and obesity. We examined associations between maternal smoking in pregnancy period and children’s weight and the possible obesogenic effects of maternal smoking.

Methods: The present study was designed as a cross-sectional analysis of a survey. A 31-question survey was administered to mothers to learn the nutrition and smoking habits in Turkey from January to March 2020. Also, a 25-question survey was administered to children to study their diet. Participants were classified as underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. The smoking status of mothers was also recorded. The data were analyzed using SPSS.

Results: The research group consisted of 454 participants (227 mothers, Mage=38.73±6.23 years and 227 children, Mage=10.39±4.96 years). In this study, 60.3% of children were underweight, 27.9% normal, 8.8% overweight, and 2.9% obese. Overall, 6.3% of children had smoking exposure and were overweight, whereas 1.4% were obese. Our results show that the relationship between maternal smoke exposure and body mass index (BMI) was non-significant (P>0.05). Children whose mothers did smoke in pregnancy period were at low risk for obesity (odds ratio [OR]=0.66, 95% CI: 0.07, 6.11) compared with children whose mothers never smoke.

Conclusion: In this study, we found that the BMI of children not increased with maternal smoking exposure. In future, taking into consideration the health of mother and child, new studies should be performed to investigate the relationship between maternal or paternal smoking exposure and childhood overweight or obesity.