United States – The study reveals that whether before pregnancy or during, using just a regular cigarette or two compromises the health of newborns.
Increased Morbidity and NICU Admissions
Mothers who took “light smoking” of one or two cigarettes a day before conceiving contribute to the increase of Infant’s morbidity rate by 16%, and they have a higher risk of being born with major health complications during delivery, according to the study, as reported by HealthDay.
It also found that those newborns also have 13% higher odds of ending up in NICU or neonatal intensive care.
Moreover, these risks are proportional to the number of cigarettes a woman consumes and are present even when a woman quits smoking halfway through her pregnancy, more studies have revealed.
These findings refute some aus and beliefs held by some women that it is right to smoke preconception or during the first trimester of pregnancy, or that ‘low-intensity smoking cannot have negative impacts, investigators explained.
Study Details
“There is no safe period and no safe level of cigarette smoking shortly before or during pregnancy,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Bo Xi, a professor of epidemiology at Shangdon University in Jinan, China.
Doctors “should emphasize the detrimental effects of even light smoking before and during pregnancy,” the researchers added.
According to background information from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, around 10 percent of pregnant women smoke in the United States. Tobacco use during pregnancy increases the likelihood of early-born babies, low births, and poor development in the uterus.
For that matter, it is not possible to determine whether or when cigarette smoking by a woman could pose some danger to a newborn before or during pregnancy.
To further the research for this paper, the U. S. datasets of over 12 million mothers who gave birth to a baby between 2016 and 2019 were considered by the researchers.
Whereas 9 % of moms reported smoking before pregnancy, 7% smoked during the first trimester, 7% during the second trimester, and 6 % during the third trimester, according to the data.
The research team then considered whether the newborns required ventilation after birth or treatment for lung disorders, septicemia or other illnesses, seizures, or any major neurological disorder.
The study shows that any smoking, not only during pregnancy but also before pregnancy, has elevated the risk of the aforementioned potentially fatal health issues affecting newborns.
Combined, two out of five neonatal health issues were at least three times more likely Among the effects of smoking before pregnancy, the risk for at least one neonatal health problem was 27% higher The risk for more than one was 31-32% higher when smoking during pregnancy.
Impact on Neonatal Health
Newborns had 24% increased odds of needing critical care if the mother smoked before pregnancy and 30-32% if she smoked during pregnancy.
Just one or two cigarettes per day increased the odds of a baby being prone to health issues – and the more the expecting mother smoked, the higher the chances of the baby getting health complications.
For instance, smokers who took 20 or more cigarettes daily required higher health risks by 31% and required intensive care by 29% than smokers who took one or two cigarettes a day by 16 and 13% respectively, as reported by HealthDay.
Pregnancy does not get terminated midway did not reduce their baby’s risk of health issues either.
“Compared with never smokers before and throughout pregnancy, mothers who stopped smoking in each trimester of pregnancy still had a higher risk of infant [health problems],” the researchers wrote in the study.