They Say: Smoking While Pregnant Makes Kids Aggressive

I thought it was generally acknowledged that it was a bad idea for women to smoke while pregnant. A new study provides another reason: the kids could end up aggressive. The likelihood of aggressive behaviour increases if the family makes less than $US40,000 per year. This is according to a study conducted by Canadian doctors that was published in the academic journal Development and Psychopathology.

To clarify, “aggressive behaviour” is that which the mothers characterized “as quick to hit, bite, kick, fight and bully others.” (I guess spitting is OK. Throwing things, perhaps?) The children studied were between 18 months and three and a half years of age.

“Mothers-to-be whose lives have been marked by anti-social behaviour have a 67 percent chance to have a physically aggressive child if they smoke 10 cigarettes a day while pregnant, compared with 16 percent for those who are non-smokers or who smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes a day. Smoking also seems to be an aggravating factor, although less pronounced, in mothers whose anti-social behaviour is negligible or zero.”

Other factors contributing to aggressiveness in preschool kids, sayeth the study: “mothers who are younger than 21, who smoke and who coerce their children to behave.” Also, “children from families who earned less than $US40,000 per year were at an increased risk for aggressive behaviour.” Which I guess means that families earning less than $US40,000 are more likely to have aggressive children whether mom puffs or not. But the aggressiveness INCREASED in those families if mom smoked, and DECREASED if she didn’t.

Are you bored yet?

Here’s my issue with studies like this. We know smoking while pregnant is a bad idea. (Like playing piano in a marching band, as they say on The Animaniacs.) So what exactly is the point of this study? What did we find out, that families with less money and a mother with a nicotine addiction are more likely to have children who exhibit “aggressive behaviour”, as defined by a certain specific “behaviours”? So what? How about a study that looks at methods that might help those kids deal with their aggression?

Reading this study makes me feel very aggressive. I need to go bite something. But since my mother doesn’t smoke, I’ll just bite into a sandwich.

Source: Science Daily

Image: Church Times