Tobacco.org

• Smoking during pregnancy increases risk of SIDS 

A new study provides the most direct evidence that there exists a causal link between smoking during pregnancy and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Clinicians have long considered prenatal cigarette smoke exposure a major contributing risk factor for SIDS, but researchers had not proved a casual relationship. Other contributing factors include disturbances of breathing and heart rate regulation and impaired arousal responses, thermal stress (primarily overheating from too high temperatures or too much clothing) and sleeping in the prone (belly-down) position.

"Since the advocacy of 'back to sleep position,' smoking during pregnancy has become the principal risk factor for SIDS," said Dr. Shabih Hasan, staff neonatologist and associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Calgary, and the principal investigator of the new study, which appears in the first issue for June of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a publication of the American Thoracic Society.

Jump to full article »