Jump to full article: Medical News TODAY(UK), 2009-10-02
Intro: New research published on bmj.com today reports that addressing the problem of smoking during pregnancy may help to reduce the socioeconomic inequalities in stillbirths and infant deaths by as much as 30 to 40 percent.
Without a doubt smoking during pregnancy has been associated with stillbirth. In addition, infant deaths and smoking rates during pregnancy vary strikingly with socioeconomic position. In order to find out more, a team of researchers began the task of measuring the effects of smoking during pregnancy and on the social inequalities gap in stillbirths and infant deaths.
They assessed the records of 529,317 live singleton births and 2,699 stillbirths delivered at 24 to 44 weeks' gestation in Scotland from 1994 to 2003.
Information on smoking during the pregnancy was gathered. A deprivation score was designated using postcode data from the 2001 population census.
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