The influence of smoking on unborn children
25 May 2020
Par: chef-projet@dnf.asso.fr
Dernière mise à jour: 25 May 2020
Temps de lecture: 2 minutes
The harmful effects of smoking during pregnancy are well established: risk of miscarriage, intrauterine growth retardation, low birth weight and increased risk of sudden infant death, and even behavioural and learning disorders in children. However, the fact is that smoking during pregnancy is still a risk that is underestimated, including by some health professionals.
In France, it is clear that the prevalence of smoking among women starting a pregnancy remains too high. While most of them actually stop smoking during the first trimester, France has one of the highest rates in Europe with 16.71% of pregnant women smoking.
A recent study, conducted at the University of Eastern Finland[1], followed 1.38 million mother-child pairs in Finland to record the height and body proportions of newborns when mothers' smoking was restricted in the first trimester of pregnancy. The study results concluded that infants had a greater reduction in body height and head circumference at birth.
Thus, the Finnish researchers show that the incidence of smoking is real regardless of the duration of smoking during pregnancy. Above all, they show that even after total cessation of smoking, exposure to smoking and the corresponding effects on the development of unborn children are not caught up during the remaining pregnancy period. In fact, newborns exposed to tobacco only during the first trimester also present after-effects attributable to smoking.
This study argues for the importance of smoking cessation when planning a pregnancy. Génération sans tabac here recalls the need for effective and accessible cessation programs specially adapted to pregnant women or those planning to become pregnant.
[1] Study: Rumrich, I., et al. (2020) Effects of maternal smoking on body size and proportions at birth: a register-based cohort study of 1.4 million births. BMJ Open. doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033465.