Effects of Prenatal Exposure to Tobacco

Abstract

Chronic exposure to tobacco smoke during adulthood is an important cause of the development of serious diseases of fatal resolution in a high percentage of affected patients; these diseases are caused both by active tobacco smoking and by passive exposure to secondary tobacco smoke, and cause serious social and economic damage to the country. The present report analyzes less known sequellae, the delayed effects of prenatal exposure to maternal tobacco smoking (active smoking or passive smokers). Besides adverse fetal outcomes, such as low birth weight, stillbirths and increase in infant mortality, delayed effects persisting for life are described. Among them: offspring respiratory sequellae, immune depression, increase in infectious diseases frequency and severity, bronchial asthma, obesity, menarche precocity, arterial hypertension, neurobehavioral alterations (syndrome of attentional deficit with hyperactivity, impulsiveness, tendency to criminality in adulthood, alcohol abuse and addiction to substances of abuse), predisposition to develop nicotine dependency, reduced semen quality and testis size and increased morbility for various cancers. Experimental studies in laboratory animals suggest for humans the development of male sexual impotence, neuroendocrine alterations and irreversible biochemical changes in central nervous system, myocardium and kidney. It is concluded that legislative and educational efforts are needed to decrease tobacco smoke health risks, and specially, prevent fetal or infant exposure due to its irreversible health sequellae it causes.