Stop smoking to reduce the risk of premature labor: here's everything you need to know

New York: Pregnant women, take note. Since smoking during pregnancy is badociated with negative health consequences, a team of researchers found that stopping smoking during pregnancy can reduce the risk of premature birth.

The results, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, showed that the probability of premature labor decreased with early smoking cessation during pregnancy – a relative decrease of up to 20% if renunciation occurred early in pregnancy.

"However, given the substantial benefits of smoking cessation during pregnancy, the fact that the proportion of smokers who quit smoking before pregnancy has remained virtually stagnant since 2011," said the author Samir Soneji of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy. Clinical practice in the United States.

For this study, the researchers conducted a cross-sectional study of more than 25 million pregnant women who gave birth to live newborns over a six-year period – measuring their smoking frequency three months before the pregnancy and each trimester of pregnancy.

The adverse health effects of smoking during pregnancy, including low birth weight, delayed intrauterine development, prematurity, infant mortality, and long-term developmental delays, are well known.

But the good news is that the proportion of women who start smoking as a smoker has declined in recent years, the researchers said.

However, the study also found that only about 25% of women who smoked prior to pregnancy were able to quit smoking throughout their pregnancy, and about 50% of women who smoked during pregnancy did so frequently ( more than 10 cigarettes per cigarette). day).

The researcher plans to examine smoking cessation rates, smoking intensity and their impact on infant mortality risk. "Fortunately, most premature babies are doing well," he said.

"But premature birth is strongly linked to infant mortality, so if we decide to quit smoking, and quit early, reduce the risk of infant mortality, this could make mothers even more aware of the risk of death. importance of the importance of quitting, "he added.