Smoking Mothers May Alter the DNA of Their Children

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Pregnant women who smoke don't just harm the health of their baby—they may actually impair their child's DNA, according to new research. A genetic analysis shows that the children of mothers who smoke harbor far more chemical modifications of their genome — known as epigenetic changes — than kids of non-smoking mothers. Many of these are on genes tied to addiction and fetal development. The finding may explain why the children of smokers continue to suffer health complications later in life.

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Re:What about...

[Ol Olsoc]

Couldn't matter much anyway, with all the "as yet unknown" effects of any number of "medicines","vaccinations",cleaning chemicals, fluoride, meth labs down the block, plastics everywhere inducing hormonal effects, butt picking fingers of the cook @ Taco Bell, McDonalds food,cosmetics, soaps, and any of the other things your wallow in all day , every day, something else will fuck up your zygote even more. Have a cigar!

THIS! A million times this.

The smokers as legal (insert n-word here) being blamed for every ill, every problem of society, and now apparently smelling cigarette smoke will immediately cause any woman in the vicinity to bear screwed up children, just reminds me of the various child based witch hunts we engage in every so often, from facilitated writing, to the world's most expensive trial where psychologists manipulated children into making up stories about people who molested them, and on and on.

So, here we are in 2014, and where are all these defective people? And with all the other things that have been found to be actually responsible for babies with big problems, like BPA and excessive phytoestrogen consumption.

Humans have so much chemical exposure today, even from foods considered the best stuff you can ever eat, that we have a pretty rough time determining what does what.

Now keep in mind that smoking tobacco is abysmally stupid, and chewing tobacco resmbles nothing more than stooping down, picking up a piece of week old dog shit, and puting a pinch twixt cheek and gum. It will kill you, and will kill you in a bad way. I had two immediate family members die from it, nothing like spitting blood into a handkerchief and drowning of the course of a few years.

But this study just seems like a way to make expectant mothers feel even more guilty than they already do.

She's carrying a new person inside, and worried that at any time, she might do something to damage or kill the kid. Let's just make her even more nervous.