Its time for all the smoking fathers to pay attention. A recent study has found that smoking may lead to a baby’s risk of developing congenital heart defects – the leading cause of stillbirth. Congenital heart affects eight in 1000 babies on a worldwide scale, The results published in the Journal of Preventive Cardiology, suggest that fathers-to-be should quit smoking.
Researchers from the Univerisity of South China state that Fathers are a large source of secondhand smoke for pregnant women, which appears to be even more harmful to unborn children than women smoking themselves.
Smoking is teratogenic, meaning it can cause developmental malformations. The association between prospective parents smoking and the risk of congenital heart defects has attracted more and more attention to the increasing number of smokers of childbearing age. The whole study states that congenital heart defects with all types of parental smoking were greater when the analysis was restricted to Asian populations.
