For the new study, the researchers used national birth certificate data from the US National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) for 2016-2019. This data included a total of 15,379,982 recorded live births. They also excluded cases of multiple pregnancies, women with high blood pressure or diabetes before pregnancy, and those without information on smoking in the three months before and during pregnancy. The analysis resulted in 12,150,535 mother-child pairs.
Newborns born to women who smoked had more risk factors for health problems. They tended to be younger, non-Hispanic, unmarried, obese, less educated, had given birth before and were less likely to attend prenatal clinics.
As for health problems seen in babies of mothers who smoked, these most often included the need for assisted ventilation immediately after birth; assisted ventilation for more than six hours; hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit for continuous mechanical ventilation; surfactant replacement therapy; suspected sepsis; seizures or serious neurological problems. The prevalence of such problems was just under 9.5%.
If the mother smokes before pregnancy, the risk of a newborn experiencing multiple serious health problems increases by 27 percent, and if the mother smokes during pregnancy, this rate increases to 31-32 percent. If the mother smokes before pregnancy, the risk of the child being admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit increases by 24 percent, and if she smokes during pregnancy, it increases by 30-32 percent.
Even one or two cigarettes per day was linked to an increased risk of health problems in children. Smoking this amount of cigarettes each day increased the likelihood of a newborn being admitted to intensive care by 13%, while smoking 20 or more cigarettes increased the likelihood of a newborn being admitted to intensive care by 29%.
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Source: Ferra
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