Smoke-Free Environment can Reduce Risk of Premature Birth

Maternal exposure to nicotine, either through active or passive smoking, has been known to have a severe impact both on the mother and the baby.

A team of researchers from Hasselt University who looked at the issue found a smoke-free environment helping to avoid many pregnancy and birth-related complications, particularly preterm birth.

Babies born before 37 weeks of gestational age are considered to be premature babies. Preterm birth is the leading cause of newborn deaths and the second leading cause of death among children aged below five in the world. In the country, more than half a million babies are born prematurely.

A preterm birth can bring in many health problems for the child, including intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy, breathing or respiratory problems, feeding or digestive problems, and vision or hearing loss.

The study was conducted in Belgium where strict laws banning smoking in public places (2006), in workplaces (2006), in restaurants (2007) and bars serving food (2010) have been implemented between 2006 and 2010. To analyze the advantages of a smoke-free environment, researchers looked at more than 606,800 children. All the children were born between 2002 and 2011 in Flanders.

Interestingly, researchers found a remarkable reduction in premature births at different phases of the law, by achieving a 3.13 percent reduction in January 2007 and 2.65 percent decrease in January 2010.

"Our study shows a consistent pattern of reduction in the risk of preterm delivery with successive population interventions to restrict smoking. It supports the notion that smoking bans have public health benefits even from early life," the authors said in a news release. "More and more countries in Europe are adopting stricter legislation on smoking in public places. These results underscore the public health benefit of smoking ban policies."

The study has been published in British Medical Journal (BMJ).

According to the American Lung Association, every day nearly 4,000 children below 18 years start the habit of smoking. Cigarettes contain about 4,000 toxic chemicals and have been linked to a wide range of diseases like lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and cancer. Apart from that, adolescents who start using tobacco early have been found more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behaviors and in alcohol and drug abuse.