A new study has determined that women who smoke during pregnancy are putting their daughters at a greater risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer later in life. Findings also demonstrated that early menarche occurred in daughters of smoking mothers. The lead researcher said that reaching menarche at an earlier age increases the number of ovulation cycles a woman will have in her life, and puts her at greater risk of developing reproductive cancers possibly due to increased exposure to hormones such as oestrogen.
Smoking during pregnancy is usually linked to a number of health risks for children including reduced birth weight, reduced lung capacity, asthma and obesity, but is not commonly linked with the development of reproductive cancers later in life. http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/03/03/humrep.dev033.full
