Women who are careless with their health in pregnancy create an increased risk of their baby having heart problems, researchers warn today.
Being both overweight and a smoker increases the risk of these problems by two and a half times compared with that faced by a woman who smokes but is not overweight, researchers said.
The findings come from a study of nearly 800 babies born with heart abnormalities in the Netherlands over an 11 year period.
They were compared with another 300 babies born with chromosomal abnormalities – but not with heart defects.
Congenital heart defects affect about eight in every 1,000 babies.
The researchers also found a three times increased risk of blockages of the flow of blood from the heart when mothers who were overweight also smoked.
Writing in the journal Heart, the researchers say tobacco and weight combined may "disturb" the mothers’ cholesterol levels. They suggest the two may interact with each other, aggravating the risk.
Researcher Dr Marian Bakker, of the University Medical Centre, Groningen, The Netherlands, says: "The findings add to the growing body of evidence for the links between smoking and overweight during pregnancy with, variously, miscarriage/stillbirth, stunted growth, and premature birth."
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