Women who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to give birth to babies with higher systolic blood pressure, researchers said.

WebMD reported July 30 that Dutch researchers compared infant blood pressure among children born to women who smoked during pregnancy, those exposed to secondhand smoke, and women who neither smoked nor were exposed to secondhand smoke.

They found that babies born to smokers had average systolic blood-pressure readings 5.4 points higher than those born to nonsmoking, non-tobacco-exposed mothers.

Diastolic blood pressure was not affected. The study appeared in the July 2007 issue of the journal Hypertension.