Women who were exposed to passive smoking as children are more likely to face fertility problems or have a miscarriage, according to new research.
The problems are likely to be caused by toxins in the smoke permanently damaging the women's bodies.
The researchers, led by Luke Peppone at the University of Rochester in New York, stress that the findings further support restrictions on smoking. They studied 4,800 women who were all treated at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York.
The women gave details of all pregnancies, attempts to conceive and miscarriages, as well as their history of smoking and breathing in secondhand smoke.
The researchers report in the journal Tobacco Control that overall, 11% of the women reported difficulty becoming pregnant, and about a third lost one or more babies
A total of 40% reported prenatal pregnancy difficulty - either losing a baby or struggling to fall pregnant in the first place. Women who remembered their parents smoking around them were 26% more likely to have had difficulty conceiving and those exposed to any secondhand smoke were 39% more likely to have miscarried.
Four out of five of the women said they were exposed to secondhand smoke at some point in their life and half grew up in a home with smoking parents.
‘These statistics are breathtaking and certainly point to yet another danger of secondhand smoke,’ Peppone said.
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