Scientists also made an association between smoking during pregnancy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Two studies support the notion that expectant mothers who smoke expose their unborn children to relatively high concentrations of nicotine, which can alter brain development.

Previous studies have associated both antisocial behaviour and ADHD with smoking when pregnant. But it was not clear whether those cases of antisocial behaviour were themselves related to smoking, or arose only as a consequence of ADHD, which is a known risk factor for antisocial behaviour.

A study by British scientists of 723 identical and 1,173 non-identical twin pairs, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that antisocial behaviour was linked to maternal smoking in its own right.

A study by doctors at Aarhus University in Copenhagen, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that expectant mothers who smoked had a nearly three-fold risk of having a child with hyperkinetic disorders, which involves excessive muscular activity, inattention and impulsive behaviour including ADHD. Tanya Button, of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said: “The safest clinical message is that smoking in pregnancy should be avoided.”

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