A New York Times article reports that increasing numbers of scientific studies show that a mother who smokes regularly may impose lifelong physical and mental handicaps upon her child. Some of these injuries, says the article, “are immediately apparent while others develop more slowly.”

Such abused babies may pay a lifelong price for their mother’s tobacco habit. Besides physical problems, says Dr. Cahan, the children may have “behavioral problems, impaired reading abilities, hyperactivity and mental retardation.” Not surprisingly, he asks: “What responsible woman can persist in a habit so threatening to her young?”

In addition, smoking parents are also a threat to growing children. Why? The booklet Facts and Figures on Smoking, published by the American Cancer Society, answers: “Children of smokers have more respiratory illnesses than those of nonsmokers, including an increase in the frequency of bronchitis and pneumonia early in life.”