The effects of smoking in pregnancy are well known, but although the importance of not smoking during this stage has been constantly mentioned, 25 percent of women of childbearing age smoke, and more than half of them continue to do so during pregnancy. pregnancy.
For this reason, it is important to continue talking about its consequences, and a recent study has put the issue back on the table. According to this new research, smoking during the first pregnancy could also affect babies in subsequent pregnancies .
The study
Published in the journal Plos One , the study analyzed the medical data of the first two pregnancies of almost 17,000 mothers between 2003 and 2018, in order to analyze the effects of smoking during pregnancy.
Previous research had already found that smoking during pregnancy increased the risk of low birth weight, but according to this study, the effects in this regard went further.
The researchers found that those women who had smoked during the first months of their first pregnancy were more likely to have a low birth weight in their second pregnancy . This probability was still present, even if during their second pregnancy they had not smoked at all.
” It is important to encourage women to quit smoking before they get pregnant, and not to do it again after having their baby, ” explains Dr. Nisreen Alwan, lead author of the study. ” Resources are needed to help mothers quit smoking and keep quitting .”
Via | EurekAlert
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