Maternal smoking in pregnancy and reproductive hormones in adult sons

Smoking during pregnancy has been reported to alter levels of reproductive hormones in adult sons. From a Danish pregnancy cohort established in 1984-1987, 347 out of 5109 sons were selected according to their exposure to tobacco smoke in foetal life. From February 2005 to January 2006, a blood sample from each young man (18-21 years) was collected and analysed for reproductive hormones. There were no apparent trends of increasing or decreasing hormonal levels with increased exposure to maternal tobacco smoking during pregnancy. Only the free testosterone/free estradiol ratios increased with increased maternal smoking during pregnancy (p for trend = 0.05). No trends for increasing odds ratios for high follicle-stimulating hormone (> or =25 percentile) or low inhibin B (< or =25 percentile) in relation to maternal smoking were observed. We found no major indication of long-term effects of pre-natal exposure to tobacco smoke on the levels of reproductive hormones later in life, but the data may suggest a shift in the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal axis towards higher androgenicity. This result was, however, of only borderline significance and could be because of chance.