New Study Claims That Smoking During Pregnancy Will Give Your Kid The Gay

The professor of neurobiology at Amsterdam University has written a new book that claims that a pregnant woman’s lifestyle has a direct impact on the development of their babies. I think everyone can site some specific examples of how we know this to be true, women under significant amounts of stress are prone to a greater incidence of preterm birth, women who lack sufficient nutrition during pregnancy have a greater chance of giving birth to an underweight child, women who smoke crack daily will probably have an infant addicted to crack. These sorts of things all sort of make common sense to the vast majority of us, but this study sounds like it has some weird science behind it indeed.

Wanting to get yourself one of those fancy new gay babies? Have your son have a lot of older brothers.

Want to have a daughter who one day may be gay or bisexual? Light a smoke and enjoy some synthetic hormones.

If you have a child with autism? That’s because you lived in an area with high pollution.

The professor and author, named Dick Swaab (which makes him sound more credible because it brings to mind frightening physical exams involving men’s genital areas and Q-tips) was quoted as saying this by the Telegraph.UK:

“Pregnant women suffering from stress are also more likely to have homosexual children of both genders because their raised level of the stress hormone cortisol affects the production of foetal sex hormones.”

He said the brain in foetuses begins to develop at two weeks, with anything that introduces toxins into the body having an impact on this development. Studies show women who took synthetic oestrogen between 1939 and 1960 to reduce the chance of miscarriage had a greater chance of bisexuality and lesbianism in their daughters.

Swaab added: “In women who drink a lot, cells that were meant to migrate across the foetal brain can end up leaving the brain altogether.

The article sadly doesn’t list any concrete evidence or how Dick came up with the numbers other than “studies show” and considering I’m not yet a doctor I can’t really delve into the science of any of this but I’m curious to read his book. Unless it isn’t translated to English and then I’ll have no idea what any of it says.

But in summary, I think I can come to this conclusion: The good doctor here is basically saying this is just one more thing you pregnant women can feel guilty/paranoid about, unless you are like most of the moms I personally know, who will be happy no matter what sexual orientation their kid turns out to be, as long as they are healthy.

(Image: getty Images)