The authors also did not control for smoking in the home or for indoor pollutants, although they did control for maternal smoking.

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Other factors such as maternal smoking at birth, having cats and dogs in the household and whether the child was breastfed also had an influence.

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Tommy's says there are a number of risk factors which may lead to premature birth including maternal smoking, infections in the womb, twin or triplet pregnancies.

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In response to a question regarding the causes of stillbirths, Dr Jones said that studies suggest that "smoking, obesity and age" are the biggest risk factors, with a recent report attributing 7% of stillbirths to maternal smoking.

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The council's director of public health, Gerry Taylor, said it was looking at genetic conditions in the same way as any other health risk for infant mortality, such as smoking in pregnancy and maternal obesity, and making sure the right services were available.

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They found, to their surprise, that cotinine had no relationship with rates of smoking in daughters but that maternal testosterone did.

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The report mentioned parenting classes, improving maternal nutrition and targeting children born in households with unhealthy habits, such as smoking, drug use and alcohol abuse.

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