2023-06-14 09:41:00
Passive smoking increases the risk of miscarriage. Women don’t even have to be pregnant. The time before pregnancy is already crucial, as a study now proves.
Pregnant women should neither smoke nor expose themselves or the unborn baby to the dangers of passive smoking. The risk of a miscarriage but does not only increase in the nine months of pregnancy. There is also an increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or an ectopic pregnancy in women who were exposed to tobacco smoke as children for a long period of time, for example from their parents. This was discovered by scientists at the US Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. The researchers led by Andrew Hyland published the study results in the journal Tobacco Control.
Stillbirth: Risk increased by 44 percent from smoking
For their study, the scientists used data from more than 80,000 women who took part in the “Women’s Health Initiative Observation Study”. All of these women have been pregnant at least once and are past menopause. More than 32 percent of them had at least one miscarriage, 4.4 percent had a stillbirth and 2.5 percent had an ectopic pregnancy.
Smokers—the study included anyone who had smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime—had a 44 percent increased risk of stillbirth compared to nonsmokers. The risk was 43 percent higher for ectopic pregnancy and a miscarriage was 16 percent more likely.
Passive smoking promotes miscarriage
But even in women who have never smoked themselves, there is an increased risk of miscarriage. And especially when they at least ten years have long been exposed to the cigarette smoke of those around them at home or at work. In this case, the risk of an ectopic pregnancy is increased by 61 percent compared to women who are very rarely passive smokers. In the case of stillbirth, the risk is increased by 55 percent, in the case of miscarriage it is still 17 percent higher.
“This information greatly expands the population that may be affected by secondhand smoke. In order to protect women and their future children, one would expect that politicians would stick to further eliminating secondhand smoke,” the “Medical News Today” quotes the responsible scientists as saying.
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#Miscarriage #passive #smoking