Quitting smoking during pregnancy is associated with reduced risk for preterm birth — and the sooner women quit, the better — suggests a study in JAMA Network Open.
Researchers examined U.S. birth certificate data on 25 million live births that occurred between 2011 and 2017. Roughly 12% of the women smoked during the 3 months before pregnancy, a quarter of whom quit during pregnancy.
The researchers found that the earlier women quit smoking, the lower their odds of preterm birth. For example, a white primigravid, primiparous woman in her twenties who smoked 1–9 cigarettes daily before and throughout pregnancy had a 9.8% chance of delivering prematurely. This dropped to 9.0% if she quit after the first trimester, and to 7.8% if she quit at the start of pregnancy. The same pattern was observed even for women who smoked more than 20 cigarettes daily and then quit.
The authors concluded that although cigarette smoking cessation may be especially difficult for pregnant women, quitting—and quitting early in pregnancy—could reduce risk of preterm birth even for high-frequency cigarette smokers.
Read the article here.
Source: NEJM Journal Watch & JAMA network open
