Jump to full article: Medical News TODAY(UK), 2008-08-21
Intro: To assist in smoking cessation, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is commonly prescribed but there is little information about the effects of NRT on a pregnant woman and her baby. New research to be published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology examines whether NRT is safe to use during pregnancy.
87, 032 singleton pregnancies from the Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC) over the period 1996 - 2002 were selected for the study. . . .
The study confirms that smoking during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of stillbirth regardless of whether NRT was used. 2% of women in the study used NRT. Researchers found that women using NRT during pregnancy tended to be older (35 years and above), were first-time mothers and had normal weight (BMI below 25). . . .
"Our study suggests that NRT-assisted smoking cessation or smoking reduction in early pregnancy provides some protection from stillbirth among women who continue to smoke during pregnancy. More research on a range of smoking-associated health outcomes is needed if we are to understand the overall safety of NRT use in pregnancy."
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