--- title: Grandmother's Smoking May Affect Your Risk of Asthma description: A study says grandmothers who smoked while pregnant increased the risk for asthma for their grandchildren. canonical: https://time.com/4054277/grandmother-smoking-asthma/ author: Tanya Basu article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-29T22:00:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:21:59.700Z article:section: Health og:title: If Grandma Smoked While Pregnant, Your Asthma Risk Spikes og:description: Even if your mom didn't smoke while pregnant og:url: https://time.com/4054277/grandmother-smoking-asthma/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: If Grandma Smoked While Pregnant, Your Asthma Risk Spikes twitter:description: Even if your mom didn't smoke while pregnant twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Grandma's Smoking Habit Might Be Why You Have Asthma  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Sep 29, 2015 10:00 PM UTC  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Sep 29, 2015 10:00 PM UTC Got asthma? It might be your grandmother’s fault. A [study](http://www.eurekalert.org/emb%5Freleases/2015-09/elf-gsh092515.php) presented Tuesday by the European Lung Foundation finds that children with grandmothers who smoked during pregnancy have an increased risk of asthma—even when their mothers did not smoke. Scientists have long known that tobacco can affect gene expression, but researchers wondered if these affected genes were passed on to posterity. The group used data on exposure and asthma medication from the Swedish Registry on 44,853 grandmothers who were pregnant between 1982 and 1986 and compared the results with their 66,271 grandchildren. The results indicated that when a grandmother smoked while pregnant—regardless of whether the mother did as well—a child’s risk of asthma increased from 10 to 22%. Researchers think this shows that people can inherit a risk for asthma from previous generations. The team next hopes to uncover whether the patrilineal line—based on male progenitors—influences asthma risk the same way. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4054277/grandmother-smoking-asthma/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4054277/grandmother-smoking-asthma/"},"headline":"Grandma's Smoking Habit Might Be Why You Have Asthma","datePublished":"2015-09-29T22:00:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:21:59.700Z","description":"Even if the mother did not smoke while pregnant","url":"https://time.com/4054277/grandmother-smoking-asthma/","keywords":["Addiction","Pregnancy","Public Health","Smoking","Research"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tanya Basu","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"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/addiction/","name":"Addiction"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4054277/grandmother-smoking-asthma/","name":"Grandma's Smoking Habit Might Be Why You Have Asthma"}}]}] ```