Study shows mothers who smoke impact baby weight and size Researchers have long recognised the risk smoking poses to babies, such as suffering from heart and brain defects. Now a new study from Spain provides evidence that babies born to mothers who smoke do in fact weigh and measure less. Presented in the journal Early Human Develop... Researchers have long recognised the risk smoking poses to babies, such as suffering from heart and brain defects. Now a new study from Spain provides evidence that babies born to mothers who smoke do in fact weigh and measure less. Presented in the journal Early Human Development, the findings show the babies' corporal dimensions are much lower compared to children of whose mothers did not smoke. A team of researchers at the University of Zaragoza in Spain evaluated 1,216 newborn babies to determine differences in body composition and proportional distribution of body mass between newborn babies whose mothers smoked and those who did not smoke during their development. The gestational age of the babies was at least 37 weeks. The study confirms that mothers who smoke give birth to babies that weigh and measure less. The data indicate that mothers who smoke have babies who are between 180 and 230 grams thinner than babies born to mothers who steered clear of nicotine. The difference, therefore, is around 216 grams. The study also found that subcutaneous skinfolds, what experts say indicate the amount of fat, are smaller in babies whose mothers smoke. It should be noted, however, that the difference was not as significant with body size. No correlation was observed between anthropometric measurements and the amount of cigarettes mothers smoked during pregnancy, according to the researchers. With respect to corporal dimension, the researchers say it is not the same as body weight index, which is the association between height and cubic weight. Just over 22% of the mothers smoked almost 8 cigarettes each day. '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,' SINC quotes co-author Gerardo Rodríguez of the University of Zaragoza as saying. '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.' Children of mothers who had admitted to consuming alcohol or taking illegal drugs during pregnancy were not permitted to take part in the study. Researchers have been investigating the effects of smoking on babies for the last 40 years. Their work has focused primarily on the risk of inhaling 'environmental tobacco smoke' by non-smokers with respiratory or heart-related diseases as well as by children whose parents smoked. Environmental tobacco smoke is defined as a mixture of the smoke exhaled by the smoker (main current) and the smoke of the cigarette through spontaneous combustion (secondary current). The British Medical Journal presented a study more than 30 years ago revealing that passive smokers have a higher chance of being diagnosed with lung cancer. Researchers believe that adults have a greater chance of suffering from myriad illnesses like cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) from 'passive smoking'.For more information, please visit:University of Zaragoza:http://www.unizar.es/Early Human Development:http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505956/description#description Countries Spain
