Are you aware that 700 million of the world's children (almost half of all children worldwide) live in the home of a smoker? It has long been suspected that children who are surrounded by smoke are more prone to symptoms and disease.

As chiropractors, we have all seen relationships between smoking, increased subluxation patterns, and a decrease in the immune system. However, you may not be aware of new studies that have been released to document our observations.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a new report on how tobacco smoke damages children's health. It stated that the adverse effects of environmental tobacco smoke include pneumonia, bronchitis, coughing, wheezing, worsening of asthma, and increased middle ear infections. Additionally, children's exposure to smoke may also contribute to cardiovascular disease in adulthood.

New research has shown that smoking during pregnancy can lead to a higher risk of adult criminal behavior. Although similar relationships have been studied in the past in children and teenagers, this was the first to examine the correlation between pregnant mothers and their child's adult behavior.

What the researchers discovered was startling.

More than 25% of the men whose mothers had the highest levels of smoking and delivery complications had been arrested for a violent crime as adults. Only one other risk factor, complications during delivery, produced similar results.

While established risk factors of prenatal smoking related to adult crimes are not available now, research will continue to determine the effects of smoking on fetal brain development and antisocial behavior.

It has, however, been determined that children born more than five weeks prematurely are more likely to have reading difficulties and suffer from behavioral problems in adolescence.

During a study conducted at the University of London and reported in The Lancet, it was discovered that infants born very pre-term showed an excess of neurocognative and behavioral problems as adolescents and more than half had abnormal brain scans.

In fact, researchers found that the children who had been born prematurely were nearly 12 times more likely to have an abnormal brain scan than the other young adults. The biggest difference in the scans of the two groups was in the brain's white matter which carries signals between the brain and the spinal cord.

Children in the study were given a series of learning and behavioral tests to determine the effects of the pre-term birth, and were found to have greater difficulty at school and lower reading scores.

You would think that in today's society, with all of the education provided pregnant women, that they would stop smoking during pregnancy. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. They continue to smoke in staggering numbers.

Smoking tobacco is one of the most addictive behaviors known, and one that is extremely difficult to stop. Many women try, some succeed, many do not. Some of your patients will tell you that they have stopped (even if they haven't) because they don't want to be lectured to, or have you think badly of them.

In our experience, after working with hundreds of women during pregnancy, we have found that of those who smoked before they became pregnant, approximately 30% continued to smoke throughout their entire pregnancy.

These women need additional support, education, and chiropractic care. Don't abandon them, and don't take it personally. Simply continue to provide the best care possible to support the mother and developing fetus. Caring for pregnant women and newborns is a highly rewarding part of your chiropractic pediatric and family practice.