Prenatal Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Early Development of Children in Rural Guizhou Province, China

Yang He, Renfu Luo, Tianyi Wang, Jingjing Gao and Chengfang Liu
Additional contact information
Yang He: School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Tianyi Wang: School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Jingjing Gao: School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Chengfang Liu: School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 12, 1-15

Abstract: Background: There is a substantial body of evidence supporting the association between maternal active smoking during pregnancy and child development, but the association between prenatal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and early child development has not been well documented. This cross-sectional study examines the association between prenatal exposure to ETS and the development of children in their first two years of life. Methods: We interviewed the primary caregivers of 446 children under two years old in rural Guizhou Province, China. Based on self-reported assessments about whether the mother was exposed to ETS during pregnancy, we divided the children into the ETS-exposed group or the non-exposed group. Sociodemographic information was collected through a questionnaire. The cognitive, language, motor, and socioemotional abilities of children were assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development III (BSID-III). A multivariate linear regression model adjusting for confounding variables was used to estimate the association of interest. Results: About 60% of mothers experienced ETS exposure during pregnancy. Cognitive and language scores were lower among children in the ETS-exposed group. When adjusting for characteristics of the child, the mother, the household, and village fixed effects, prenatal exposure to ETS was associated with lower cognition scores (−3.41; 95% confidence interval (CI): −6.39 to −0.42; p = 0.03) and language scores (−3.01; 95% CI: −5.39 to −0.09; p = 0.04). Frequency of prenatal exposure to ETS was also negatively associated with language development (−0.48; 95% CI: −0.87 to −0.09; p = 0.02) before children reached two years old. Conclusions: Prenatal exposure to ETS is negatively associated with the cognitive and language development of rural young children within their first two years of life. The government should take action to raise public awareness about the negative effects of tobacco use, with an emphasis on the protection of pregnant women and their children, in order to carry through comprehensive smoke-free laws in rural areas, while also increasing tobacco taxation.

Keywords: prenatal exposure to ETS; environmental tobacco smoke; early development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2866/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2866/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:12:p:2866-:d:190658

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().