--- title: Smoking During Pregnancy and Mental Illness Risk in Kids description: Smoking during pregnancy is linked to many different health problems, but severe mental illness may not be one of them, finds a new study canonical: https://time.com/4765664/smoking-pregnancy-mental-illness/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-04T14:33:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:44:08.884Z article:section: Health og:title: Does Smoking While Pregnant Lead to Mental Illness in Kids? og:description: Smoking during pregnancy is linked to many different health problems, but severe mental illness may not be one of them, finds a new study og:url: https://time.com/4765664/smoking-pregnancy-mental-illness/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfef1995a9c02b5e4/6988cbfd7cdbac5e7bd5835e/pregnancy-belly.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4961 og:image:height: 2791 og:image:alt: pregnancy belly og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Does Smoking While Pregnant Lead to Mental Illness in Kids? twitter:description: Smoking during pregnancy is linked to many different health problems, but severe mental illness may not be one of them, finds a new study twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfef1995a9c02b5e4/6988cbfd7cdbac5e7bd5835e/pregnancy-belly.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Smoking While Pregnant May Not Lead to Mental Illness in Kids: Study > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=fa233a71-5a2f-4987-a595-78c8a3a149a7&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1)  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 4, 2017 2:33 PM UTC  Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 4, 2017 2:33 PM UTC There are plenty of good reasons for pregnant women not to smoke. Exposing a developing fetus to [nicotine](http://time.com/3815234/snus-fda/) and the other [carcinogens in cigarettes](http://time.com/3921149/cancer-smoking-lung-cancer/) is linked to a higher risk of birth defects and miscarriage, as well as premature birth and low birth weight. A more controversial link has been suggested between smoking and schizophrenia and bipolar disorder later in the child’s life. But a new [report published in _JAMA Psychiatry_](http://click.alerts.jamanetwork.com/click/fzcko-ary6so-1b57q928/) of nearly 1.7 million people born in Sweden in the 1980s and 1990s shows maternal smoking does not seem to increase the risk of severe mental illness in children later in life. Researchers came to that conclusion after looking at health data from babies born to mothers who smoked and those born to mothers who did not, and compared their rates of conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. At first, they found that children born to women who smoked during pregnancy had a 25% to 51% higher rate of developing severe mental illness compared to women who didn’t smoke. But when they controlled for other factors that could explain the mental illness, that connection wasn’t as strong. **MORE:** [A New Study Details the Effects of Smoking in Pregnancy](http://healthland.time.com/2011/07/12/why-its-bad-to-smoke-while-pregnant/?iid=sr-link2) To account for those factors, the research team compared rates of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder among siblings whose mother reported smoking during some pregnancies but not during others. This was a way to control for a number of genetic and environmental factors that the siblings shared in common. That analysis did not show a significant difference in the rate of mental illness among the siblings, which strongly suggests that exposure to smoking in utero was not driving mental illness. “We found that the association is likely explained by other factors, rather than anything specific to exposure to smoking during pregnancy,” says study author Patrick Quinn, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University. He speculates that the siblings’ shared genetic background was at least partly responsible. **MORE:** [Mothers Who Smoke While Pregnant Put Kids at Risk of Substance Abuse](http://healthland.time.com/2013/06/20/mothers-who-smoke-while-pregnant-put-kids-at-risk-of-substance-abuse/?iid=sr-link3) However, that doesn’t mean that smoking isn’t still a risk to the developing baby. “None of these findings say that there is anything safe about smoking during pregnancy,” Quinn says. In fact, this study corroborates previous findings that babies exposed to smoking in utero were more likely to be premature or to be born with low birth weight, both of which can increase the risk for other health-related issues later in life. The results also highlight the fact that there may be other factors that increase the risk of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that need to be identified and studied further. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4765664/smoking-pregnancy-mental-illness/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4765664/smoking-pregnancy-mental-illness/"},"headline":"Smoking While Pregnant May Not Lead to Mental Illness in Kids: Study","datePublished":"2017-05-04T14:33:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:44:08.884Z","description":"Smoking while pregnancy is linked to a number of different health problems, but severe mental illness may not be one of them, according to a new study","url":"https://time.com/4765664/smoking-pregnancy-mental-illness/","keywords":["Mental Health/Psychology","Pregnancy","Smoking","tobacco","Reproductive Health","Mental Illness","schizophrenia"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfef1995a9c02b5e4/6988cbfd7cdbac5e7bd5835e/pregnancy-belly.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfef1995a9c02b5e4/6988cbfd7cdbac5e7bd5835e/pregnancy-belly.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"pregnancy belly","caption":"pregnancy belly","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/mental-healthpsychology/","name":"Mental Health/Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4765664/smoking-pregnancy-mental-illness/","name":"Smoking While Pregnant May Not Lead to Mental Illness in Kids: Study"}}]}] ```