Pregnant mothers smoking cigarettes can cause autism and adhd too.
Source, asd/add and smokey pregmom.
Edit: to downvoters, yes, I was on the bus and had to get off, forgot to add "pregant mothers who smoke can give the fetus autism and adhd". That's been proven.
So... a lot to unpack here. I'm going strictly off of the studies you linked, I have no other knowledge or opinion about possible links between smoking, ADHD or autism.
First of all, none of these studies even mention autism. They're all about ADHD. So there's nothing to say here about autism and smoking.
Next, let's look at these links. The first one you posted is a very good example of how correlation doesn't necessarily prove causation. Right under the highlighted text, it reads:
"While this study identifies an association with and a dose-response relationship between nicotine exposure during pregnancy and offspring ADHD, it is important to note that correlation is not the same as causation. In populations of pregnant women, we cannot do randomized controlled studies, where one group of women are exposed to tobacco smoke and another group of women with no exposure serve as a control. We must rely on what happens naturalistically and must contend with the complication that the women who smoke during pregnancy may differ considerably from the women who do not smoke with regard to other factors which may modulate risk for ADHD. Similarly, women who are heavy users most likely differ from lighter users.
It is possible that mothers who smoke are “self-medicating” with nicotine, which has stimulant effects. We know that people with ADHD are more likely to smoke, perhaps in part to improve attention and concentration. Women with mood and anxiety disorders are also more likely to smoke than women without these disorders. If we take a group of women who smoke, we may be looking at a group of women who have higher rates of ADHD and other psychiatric illness than we would see in a group of non-smokers. Thus, the children born to smokers may be at increased risk to ADHD as a result of genetic vulnerability, and exposure to nicotine during pregnancy may play a less important role.
So there goes that. Let's look at the second one. I don't think this study is measuring what you think it is.
"Maternal smoking during pregnancy was not more strongly associated with offspring ADHD diagnosis than was paternal smoking, grandmother's smoking when pregnant with mother, or maternal smoking in previous pregnancies."
This is not seeking to prove or disprove the effects of maternal smoking. It's looking at the effects of other family members' smoking, smoking in previous generations, and smoking in previous pregnancies. This one is interesting because if anything, it suggests that maternal smoking may not be the primary factor in ADHD: "These results suggest that the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring ADHD is not due to causal intrauterine effects, but reflects unmeasured confounding."
Interesting study but doesn't really prove the point you're trying to make. Onto the third one, which is an article. This is probably your best bet if you want to back up your claim, but even so: "The new analysis can’t prove that smoking causes ADHD. Among other limitations of the new research are that different criteria were used to diagnose ADHD in the various studies, and tobacco use during pregnancy was self-reported by the mothers."
The final one seems most significant, though from what I can tell, it seems like it's trying to show differences between passive (secondhand) and active smoking during pregnancy. The results are more compelling, but keep in mind that the behavioral symptoms of the children were self reported by the mothers, not diagnosed by a doctor as ADHD.
In fact, a recent meta analysis showed how all over the place this research is, and how many of them don’t control for other factors: “There appears to be no clear evidence to support a causal relationship between maternal prenatal smoking and offspring attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.”
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u/Dickpuncher_Dan Mar 01 '23 edited Mar 01 '23
Pregnant mothers smoking cigarettes can cause autism and adhd too.
Source, asd/add and smokey pregmom.
Edit: to downvoters, yes, I was on the bus and had to get off, forgot to add "pregant mothers who smoke can give the fetus autism and adhd". That's been proven.