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The association between smoking during pregnancy (SDP) and severe mental illness (SMI) in offspring is well known, but the direction of causality is not. To learn more, researchers cross-referenced Swedish national registry data on SDP and the development of schizophrenia spectrum disorders and bipolar disorder between ages 12 and 25 in almost 1.7 million people who had been born as singletons. The impact of familial factors was assessed by comparing the association in siblings and cousins.
Overall, the likelihood of SMI in offspring was increased by 25% whose mothers smoked ≤9 cigarettes/day during pregnancy and by 51% whose mothers smoked ≥10 cigarettes/day, compared with women who did not smoke during pregnancy. However, when familial fac…