Women who gave up smoking when their pregnancy was confirmed give birth to babies with a similar birthweight to those born to mothers who had never smoked, a new research has shown.
Professor Nick Macklon, from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and colleagues decided to investigate this question by studying clinical, lifestyle, and socioeconomic data collected from 50 000 pregnancies registered at the Southampton University Medical Centre between 2002 and 2010.
They identified seven groups of women – non-smokers, those who had stopped more than a year prior to conceiving, those who had stopped less than a year prior to conceiving, smokers who stopped once the pregnancy was confirmed, and those who continued to smoke up to 10 a day, between 10 and 20 a day, and more than 20 a day.
They proceeded to compare smoking behaviour in the mothers with perinatal outcomes in the children.
After correcting for gestational age, maternal age, BMI and socioeconomic class, all of which are known to affect birth outcomes, the researchers found that those babies whose mothers had stopped smoking in the periconceptional period – around the time of getting pregnant or as soon as the pregnancy was confirmed – had a significantly higher birthweight.
Not only was birthweight much better in this group than it was in the groups where the mothers had continued to smoke, but we also found that the babies reached the same gestational age and head circumference as those born to women who had never smoked, said Professor Macklon.
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Tags: Babies, Birthweight Babies