Children have a greater risk of developing asthma if their fathers smoked before their conception, a study has found.

This marks the first study to investigate the link between childhood asthma and a father's smoking habits prior to conception.

Norwegian scientists looked at the smoking habits of over 13,000 men and women. They then looked at any potential links between the incidence of asthma in children and their parents' smoking habits prior to conception.

The study found that asthma was much more common among children whose fathers had smoked prior to their conception. This risk increased further if their father had started smoking before the age of 15. It also increased the longer their father had been smoking.

However no link between asthma and a mother's smoking status prior to conception was found.

According to Dr Cecile Svanes of the University of Bergen, this is an important study as it is the first to show ‘how a father's smoking habit pre-conception can affect the respiratory health of his children'.

"Given these results, we can presume that exposure to any type of air pollution, from occupational exposures to chemical exposures, could also have an effect. It is important for policymakers to focus on interventions targeting young men and warning them of the dangers of smoking and other exposures to their unborn children in the future," she said.

Details of these findings were presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Munich, Germany recently.

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