Smoking one or two cigarettes a day before or during pregnancy is associated with health problems for the baby.
- Even smoking 1 to 2 cigarettes a day before or during pregnancy is associated with major health problems in the newborn.
- Babies face, among other things, an increased risk of admission to intensive care at birth.
- The researchers conclude that there is no safe period and no safe level of smoking shortly before or during pregnancy.
Smoking is strongly discouraged when you are pregnant… This bad habit has harmful effects on the health of the baby, even if you only smoke one or two cigarettes a day before or during your pregnancy. Here are the conclusions of a study published on the website of the Journal of epidemiology & Community Health.
Pregnancy: Smoking is really not good for the baby
To determine the impact of smoking frequency on pregnancy and fetus, the researchers used data from the U.S. National Vital Statistics System on births between 2016 and 2019. This represented a total of 15,379,982 live births.
After excluding multiple births, women who had high blood pressure or diabetes before pregnancy, or who had no information on smoking in the three months before and during their pregnancy, 12,150,535 mother-child pairs were available for analysis.
Just over 9% of patients admitted to smoking before pregnancy, 7% during the first trimester, 6% in the second and less than 6% in the third. The frequency of smoking was also noted.
Babies of smokers were at higher risk for neonatal health problems. The researchers found an increased risk for the baby to need assisted ventilation after delivery, to be admitted to intensive care, to have sepsis or seizures and to have serious neurological problems. The prevalence of all these problems was estimated at just under 9.5%.
“The risk of more than one major neonatal health problem if the mother smoked before pregnancy was 27% higher, and 31 to 32% higher if she smoked at any time during pregnancy.”note the authors in their press release. “With respect to timing, women who smoked only before pregnancy or only during the first, second or third trimester were more likely to have their newborns suffer from more than one major health problem than women who did not smoke at any time.”
“Light” smokers also have an increased risk of neonatal health problems
Smoking has significant adverse effects on babies even in “light” smokers. The study found that even lighting up 1-2 cigarettes a day was associated with an increased risk of major neonatal health problems. For example, in mothers who smoked 1-2 cigarettes a day before pregnancy, the risk was 16% higher. It was 31% higher if they smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day. The risk of admission to intensive care for their newborn was 13% higher with a daily number of 1-2 cigarettes, increasing to 29% higher for 20 or more cigarettes.
These results lead researchers to estimate “that there is no safe period and no safe level of smoking shortly before or during pregnancy”. In addition, they generally recall “the need to prevent smoking initiation for non-smokers and to promote smoking cessation for smokers.”
