You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 70, Issue 3
  • Grandmother's smoking when pregnant with the mother and asthma in the grandchild: the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study

Article Text

Article menu
Environmental exposure
Original article
Grandmother's smoking when pregnant with the mother and asthma in the grandchild: the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study
Free
  1. Maria C Magnus1,
  2. Siri E Håberg2,
  3. Øystein Karlstad3,
  4. Per Nafstad1,4,
  5. Stephanie J London5,
  6. Wenche Nystad1
  1. 1Division of Epidemiology, Department of Chronic Diseases, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
  2. 2Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Institute Management and Staff, Oslo, Norway
  3. 3Division of Epidemiology, Department of Pharmacoepidemiology, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
  4. 4Medical Faculty, Department of Community Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  5. 5Epidemiology Branch, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA
  1. Correspondence to Maria Christine Magnus, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology, Department of Chronic Diseases, PO Box 4404, Nydalen, N-0403 Oslo, Norway; maria.christine.magnus{at}fhi.no

Abstract

Background A trans-generational influence of prenatal tobacco smoke exposure on asthma development has been proposed but the evidence remains sparse.

Methods We examined the grandmother's smoking when pregnant with the mother in relation to asthma outcomes in the grandchild (current asthma at 36 months (N=53 169, cases=3013), current asthma at 7 years (N=25 394, cases=1265) and dispensed asthma medications at 7 years in the Norwegian Prescription Database (N=45 607, cases=1787)) within the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). We calculated adjusted RR (adj. RR) and 95% CIs using log binomial regression.

Results A total of 23.5% of mothers reported that their mother smoked when pregnant with them. The grandmother's smoking when pregnant with the mother was positively associated with asthma at 36 months (adj. RR 1.15 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.24)), asthma at 7 years (adj. RR 1.21 (95% CI 1.07 to 1.37)) and dispensed asthma medications at 7 years (adj. RR 1.15 (95% CI 1.04 to 1.26)). This positive association did not differ significantly by the mother's smoking status when pregnant with the child (p values for multiplicative interaction >0.1).

Conclusions The grandmother's smoking when pregnant with the mother increased the risk of asthma in the grandchild independent of the mother's smoking status. However, given limited information on the grandmother's socioeconomic status, asthma status and other factors, unmeasured confounding may be present.

  • Asthma
  • Tobacco and the lung

https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2014-206438

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Supplementary materials

    • Supplementary Data

      This web only file has been produced by the BMJ Publishing Group from an electronic file supplied by the author(s) and has not been edited for content.

      Files in this Data Supplement:

    Linked Articles