Smoking Before or During Pregnancy Tied to Severe Neonatal Morbidity

FRIDAY, Aug. 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Maternal cigarette smoking before or during pregnancy increases the risk for severe neonatal morbidity (SNM), according to a study published online Aug. 20 in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Lili Yang, Ph.D., from the Cheeloo College of Medicine at Shandong University in Jinan, China, and colleagues examined the associations of the timing and intensity of maternal cigarette smoking with infant SNM. The analysis included birth certificate data from 12.2 million women (aged 18 to 49 years) who had live singleton births identified from the 2016 to 2019 U.S. National Vital Statistics System.

The researchers found that maternal cigarette smoking either before pregnancy or during any trimester of pregnancy significantly increased the risk for infant SNM, even at a very low intensity (one to two cigarettes per day). Compared with women who did not smoke before pregnancy, the composite SNM in newborns from women who smoked one to two, three to five, six to nine, 10 to 19, and ≥20 cigarettes per day before pregnancy were elevated (adjusted odds ratios, 1.16, 1.22, 1.26, 1.27, and 1.31, respectively). A higher risk for composite SNM was still seen in smokers who stopped during pregnancy versus never smokers before and throughout pregnancy.

“Interventions should emphasize the detrimental effects of even light smoking before and during pregnancy,” the authors write.

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