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Excerpts from Smoking causes crime: Everyone knows it's a bad habit, but a new study claims that it is worse than we think, writes CHARMAIN NAIDOO in New York

EVIDENCE has been found to support a theory that mothers who smoke during pregnancy run a greater risk of bearing children who will grow up to be criminals.

A study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry is the first of its kind that examines the relationship between smoking mothers and their children's adult behaviour. While the researchers do not state that babies born to mothers who smoke will definitely grow up to live lives of crime, they say their findings are significant.

They wrote: "Our results support our hypothesis that maternal smoking during pregnancy is related to increased rates of crime in adult offspring." The researchers believe that further study is necessary to determine the effects of smoking on the brains of unborn babies and to see whether specific agents in tobacco smoke can be directly linked to anti-social behaviour.

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