Smoking During Pregnancy Could Lead To Early Puberty In Children

Scientists in Denmark said if a mother smoked during pregnancy, there is a risk of her children going into puberty earlier.

The findings of a major study from Aarhus University in Demark, has linked mother’s smoking during pregnancy together with when her children enter puberty. The study is published in the international journal ‘American Journal of Epidemiology’. One of the researchers behind the study Nis Brix and a PhD student, said, “We found that children of mothers who had smoked more than ten cigarettes a day during pregnancy, on average entered puberty three to six months earlier than the children of non-smokers.”

The study is one of the largest puberty studies worldwide, and the results are based on the survey “Better health for generations” from the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark. For many girls in the developed world, puberty is coming earlier than ever before, with studies showing that, on average, puberty is now starting for girls at around 10 years old – at least five years earlier than a century ago.

Puberty starts on average in girls between ages eight and13 and in boys between ages nine and 14. Doctors diagnose early puberty when this normal process starts early and continues to progress through growth spurts and bone maturation, usually for reasons we don’t understand. Girls who show significant signs of puberty and its progression before age seven and boys before age nine are considered precocious. About one out of 5,000 children are affected. A total of 15,819 pregnant women and their children participated in the study.

Nis Brix said: “Early puberty can be associated with an increased risk of a number of diseases as an adult, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and certain types of cancer,” adding that together with his colleagues, he is working to identify the causes of puberty to be able to prevent it occurring.