Babies of smoking mums
weigh less at birth
The new study lead by the
University of Zaragoza evaluates the differences in bodycomposition
and proportional distribution of body mass between babies born to mothers who
have and have not smoked during pregnancy.
Their corporal dimensions are also
significantly higher compared to the children of mothers who did smoke during
pregnancy. But, this is not the same as body weight index (the relationship between height
and cubic weight).
In fact, the results highlight
that mothers who smoke during pregnancy give birth to babies that are between
180 and 230 grams thinner than the offsprings of mothers who do not smoke. In
other words, this constitutes an average of 216 grams.
Furthermore, subcutaneous
skinfolds, which show the amount of fat, are lower in children born of mothers
who smoked. In this case however, differences were not as great as with body
size.
On the contrary, the authors of
the study did not find any correlation between anthropometric measurements and
the number of cigarettes smoked per day during pregnancy.
"Given the scarce
bibliography on the subject, we had to assess the impact of tobacco on the body
composition of babies born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy,"
Gerardo Rodriguez, lead author of the study, said.
For this purpose, the experts
analysed that the newly born full term babies with a gestational age of at
least 37 weeks of 1216 Caucasian mothers (22.1 percent of whom smoked an
average of almost eight cigarettes per day) in the University Clinical Hospital
of Lozano Blesa in Zaragoza.
The children of those mothers who
had admitted to consuming alcohol or taking illegal drugs during pregnancy were
excluded from the study.
"Tobacco consumption during
pregnancy can cause a generalised reduction in the majority of parameters as a
result of a decrease in foetal growth. Newly born babies to mothers who smoked
during pregnancy are smaller and have less subcutaneous fat compartments," Rodriguez added.
The study has been published in the Early
Human Development journal.
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