Mothers’ Smoking, Depression Affect Teen Smoking Rates

Mothers who don’t want their kids to smoke should kick the habit themselves, suggests research that finds the smoking rate three times higher among adolescents who live with mothers who are smokers.

Research from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that 16.9 percent of adolescents living with mothers who smoked were themselves current smokers, compared to 5.8 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds whose did not live with mothers who smoked.

The study also said that current smoking rates doubled — from 7.9 percent to 14.3 percent — for children whose mothers had suffered a major depressive incident during the past year. Kids who lived with smoking mothers and had suffered depression  had a smoking rate of 25.3 percent.

The Adolescent Smoking and Maternal Risk Factors study is available online.