Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Dec;15(12):2029-36.
doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntt094. Epub 2013 Jul 23.

Association of maternal smoking with child cotinine levels

Alexander I Stiby  1 , John Macleod, Matthew Hickman, Vikki L Yip, Nicholas J Timpson, Marcus R Munafò
Affiliations

Association of maternal smoking with child cotinine levels

Alexander I Stiby et al. Nicotine Tob Res. 2013 Dec.

Abstract

Introduction: Our aim was to understand the strength of association between parental smoking and child environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure in order to inform the development of future tobacco control policies. ETS was measured using child cotinine levels below the active smoking threshold.

Methods: Participants were drawn from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and included 3,128 participants at age 7 years and 1,868 participants at age 15 years. The primary outcome was cotinine levels of nonsmoking children, to investigate the relationship between maternal smoking and child cotinine levels. The secondary outcome was cotinine levels of all individuals to investigate the relationship between child smoking and child cotinine levels. Maternal and child smoking behavior was assessed by self-report questionnaire. We adjusted for several sociodemographic variables.

Results: We found an association between maternal smoking and child cotinine at age 7 years (mean cotinine = 1.16ng/ml serum, ratio of geometric means = 3.94, 95% CI = 2.86-5.42) and at age 15 years (mean cotinine = 0.94ng/ml serum, ratio of geometric means = 5.26, 95% CI = 3.06-9.03), after adjustment for potential confounders.

Conclusions: The magnitude of this association for children whose mothers were heavy smokers was comparable with the quantity of half the levels of cotinine observed among children who were irregular (i.e., nonweekly) active smokers, and it was greater than five times higher than that seen in nonsmoking children whose mothers didn't smoke. This provides further evidence for the importance of public health interventions to reduce smoking exposure in the home.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Association of child cotinine level with child smoking behavior at age 15. The bar chart shows the means of child’s cotinine level (ng/ml serum) by number of cigarettes smoked per day (none, nondaily, 1–5, 6–10, 11–20) at age 15 years. A kernel density plot has been superimposed over this graph to show the density of individuals by the number of cigarettes smoked per day. This graph shows an increasing mean of cotinine level as the number of cigarettes smoked per day increases. The density of the population decreases as the number of cigarettes smoked per day increases.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Association of child cotinine level with maternal smoking behavior at age 15. The bar chart shows the means of child’s cotinine level (ng/ml serum) at age 15 years within nonsmokers by number of cigarettes the mother smokes per day (none, 1–5, 6–10, 11–20, more than 20) measured at the same timepoint. A kernel density plot has been superimposed over this graph to show the density of children by the number of cigarettes the mother smokes per day. This graph shows an increasing mean of cotinine level as the number of cigarettes the mother smokes per day increases although this pattern reverses in very heavy smokers (20+ cigarettes/day). The density of the population decreases as the number of cigarettes smoked per day increases.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Bard D. E., Rodgers J. L. (2003). Sibling influence on smoking behavior: A within-family look at explanations for a birth-order effect. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 1773–1795 doi:10.1111/j.1559–1816.2003.tb02080.x
    1. Benowitz N. (1996). Cotinine as a biomarker of environmental tobacco smoke exposure. Epidemiologic Reviews, 18, 188–204 doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.epirev.a017925 - PubMed
    1. Boyd A., Golding J., Macleod J., Lawlor D. A., Fraser A., Henderson J. … Davey Smith G. (2012). Cohort profile: The ‘Children of the 90s’—the index offspring of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. International Journal of Epidemiology, 42, 111–127 doi:dys06410.1093/ije/dys064 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dempsey D. A., Meyers M. J., Oh S. S., Nguyen E. A., Fuentes-Afflick E., Wu A. H. … Benowitz N. L. (2012). Determination of tobacco smoke exposure by plasma cotinine levels in infants and children attending urban public hospital clinics. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Archpediatrics. doi:2012.2170 v2011 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dolcini M. M., Adler N. E., Lee P., Bauman K. E. (2003). An assessment of the validity of adolescent self-reported smoking using three biological indicators. Nicotine and Tobacco Results, 5, 473–483 doi:FEADEAKUJ1PQJ54A - PubMed

Publication types