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• Snuff Use During Pregnancy Puts Baby, Mom, at Risk 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters Health) - Women who use smokeless tobacco rather than smoking cigarettes during pregnancy may still put themselves and their babies in jeopardy, government researchers reported Friday at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine here.

"We need to do more research about whether smokeless tobacco is a safe substitute for smoking, it may not be that simple," said study co-author Dr. Mark Klebanoff, director of the division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland.

The researchers hoped to evaluate the effect of snuff, or smokeless tobacco, on the health of the developing fetus. Lead author Dr. Lucinda England of the NIH and colleagues examined data from the Swedish Medical Birth Register for women who delivered babies during 1999-2000.

The researchers compared the 789 snuff users to the 11,242 cigarette smokers and 11,500 women who refrained from using any tobacco, looking at rates of preterm delivery, the pregnancy complication preeclampsia and restriction of fetal growth.

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