• Dolores Jurado, Carmen Muñoz, Juan de Dios Luna, and Antonio Muñoz-Hoyos.
• Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Facultad de Medicina, University of Granada, Avenida de Madrid 11, E-18012 Granada, Spain. djurado@ugr.es
• Respir Med. 2005 Sep 1; 99 (9): 1138-44.

BackgroundIt is generally accepted that maternal smoking has more detrimental effects than paternal smoking on the respiratory health of children. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of postnatal exposure due to the smoking behaviour by father and mother in the home, and prenatal exposure from maternal smoking during pregnancy, on the respiratory symptoms in children.MethodsThe parents of 484 children, aged 3-6 years, completed a questionnaire about smoking and respiratory symptoms in children. Bivariate and logistic regression analyses were used to examine the associated factors with respiratory symptoms.ResultsThe final model of logistic regression analysis showed that prenatal exposure by maternal smoking during pregnancy increased the risk of wheezing with colds (adjusted OR=2.00, 95% CI:1.13-3.55) with respect to those children whose mothers reported no smoking during pregnancy. Postnatal exposure by maternal smoking in the home, in the presence of the child, increased the risk of cough with phlegm (adjusted OR=2.79, 95% CI:1.23-6.30) with respect to those children whose mothers did not smoke in their presence. Paternal smoking was associated with wheezing and cough in the bivariate analysis, but did not remain significant in the multivariate analysis.ConclusionsOur results underline a greater influence of exposure to maternal smoking (prenatal and postnatal) than postnatal paternal smoking on the development of respiratory symptoms in young children.

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