Smoking during pregnancy appears to affect children's birthweight, and possibly their risk of becoming overweight, but it may not directly harm other aspects of physical and cognitive development, a large study suggests. The findings, from a study of nearly 53,000 US children born in the 1960s, found that those whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were at higher risk of low birthweight - a link that studies have long noted.

(China Daily September 17, 2008)