Relationship between maternal nutritional status, smoking during pregnancy and growth of fetus and of child during first year of life

Abstract

The relationship between maternal nutritional state, maternal cigarette smoking habits, weight of infants at birth and their growth in the first year of life, in a group of 1,066 pregnant women (and their children) of low socio-economic status was studied. Babies born to smoking mothers weighed significantly less than those born to non-smoking mothers, whether these were normal or even obese women. It was also observed that children born to undernourished mothers weighed significantly less than those born to normal or obese women. Children born to smoking mothers weighed less than the others up to the 3rd month of life only; children born to undernourished women weighed significantly less than the others up to the 9th month of life. Thus, even among pregnant women of low socio-economic status, the effect of smoking on growth is restricted to the intra-uterine environment. The influence of maternal malnutrition is mantained for a longer period in this sample of the population. It was verified that there was a negative association between maternal nutritional status and maternal smoking habits, suggesting that, at least partially, the influence of maternal smoking on the fetus can be mediated by the nutritional status.