Menopause

Previous research has found that a woman's own smoking habits, as well her partner's, may also precipitate the point at which she can no longer get pregnant.

To assess whether the smoking habits of fathers around the time of conception affected the period in which daughters experienced menstrual cycles, researchers questioned more than 1,000 Japanese women who were visiting clinics for gynecologic exams and were past menopause. They asked the women how old they were when they got their periods and when they hit menopause, as well as whether they or their husbands smoked in between those dates. The researchers also had women ask their parents about whether their mothers or fathers smoked while their mothers were pregnant.

About three-quarters of fathers had smoked while their daughters were in the womb, just as three-quarters of women said their husbands smoked before they hit menopause. Far fewer women in both generations - between four and six percent - had smoked themselves while pregnant or during the time they could have become pregnant.

Across all participants, women stopped getting their periods when they were 51 years old, on average. It was found that women who were smokers hit menopause an average of about 14 months earlier than women who didn't light up. When their husbands smoked, they hit menopause five months earlier - but that didn't pass statistical tests to show a definitive effect.

Women whose fathers smoked while they were in the womb stopped having their periods about 13 months earlier than those whose dads were nonsmokers. Whether her dad smoked did not influence when a woman had started her period, however. Not enough mothers smoked for the researchers to determine how that influenced when their daughters hit puberty or menopause.

Many studies have looked at maternal smoking and the potential health risks and mothers seem to be quitting or reducing smoking during pregnancy. The hope is this study will be the first of others to show that paternal smoking during pregnancy can contribute just as much to possible health issues for the unborn child.