CHILDREN whose mothers smoke heavily during pregnancy are more likely to become career criminals, research out today suggests.

Heavy smoking is linked to offending regardless of whether the child was brought up in socially deprived circumstances, a study found.

Experts from Harvard School of Public Health, in the US, found an increased risk for women who smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day during pregnancy.

Their study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, enrolled more than 3,700 mothers between 1959 and 1966 and asked about their smoking habits during pregnancy.

In 1999/2000, when their children were at least 33, criminal record checks were carried out.

The results showed those children whose mothers smoked heavily were 31% more likely to have been arrested as those whose mothers never smoked, and were more likely to be repeat offending.

The findings were the same for both men and women. The authors said their findings “suggest the elevated risk of offending is independent of other family attributes more common among women who smoke during pregnancy, such as a history of mental illness and lower socio-economic status, and may be attributable to smoke exposure.

“While we cannot definitively conclude maternal smoking during pregnancy (particularly heavy smoking) is a causal risk factor for adult criminal offending, the current findings do support a link.”