Smoking while pregnant cause 90% of cot deaths

17 October, 2007

In a shocking finding, it has been revealed that 9 out of 10 victims of cot death had mothers who smoked during pregnancy.

The scientists who carried out a major research has warned that pregnant women who smoke are four times more likely to see their child die from cot
death than non-smokers.

The report of the study, conducted by the Institute of Child Life and Health of Bristol University, the United Kingdom, has called upon the British government to ban expectant women from buying tobacco.

According to the authors of the study, smoking in the presence of pregnant women and infants should be seen as being “anti-social, potentially dangerous and unacceptable.”

Peter Fleming and Dr Peter Blair, researchers, based their analysis on the evidence from 21 international studies on smoking and sudden infant death
syndrome (SIDS).

“If smoking is a cause of SIDS, as the evidence suggests it is, we think that if all parents stopped smoking tomorrow, more than 60% of SIDS deaths would be prevented,” Dr Peter Blair said.

The risk of unexpected infant death is greatly increased by both prenatal and postnatal exposure to tobacco smoke. Dr Blair wants a “smoke-free zone” around pregnant women and infants. Reduction of prenatal exposure to tobacco smoke, by reducing smoking in pregnancy, and of postnatal exposure to tobacco by not allowing smoking in the home, will substantially reduce the risk of SIDS, he says.

Around 300 babies die a year of cot death in Britain, usually between the ages of 1 month and 4 months.

The report says that many women are still ignoring the risks of smoking when they were carrying a child. It adds, “Given the power that tobacco addiction holds over its victims, there is grave concern as to whether it will be a successfully modifiable risk factor without fundamental changes in tobacco availability to vulnerable individuals.”

Smoking may have an effect on brain chemicals in the fetus, or could prevent the lungs developing properly.

The British government’s advice on smoking currently recommends only that mothers and fathers “cut smoking in pregnancy.” It also says smokers
should not share a bed with their baby.

Earlier in 2007, a group of doctors had called for a ban on parents smoking indoors when children are present.

Over the past 15 years, the number of pregnant mothers who smoked has fallen from 30% to 20% in the United Kingdom, but the percentage of cot death victims whose mothers smoked rose from 57% in 1984 to 86% in 2003. This rise is believed to be on account of the success of the Back to Sleep campaign, launched in 1991, which advised parents to lay their babies on their backs to sleep.

The Back to Sleep campaign led to a reduction in the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome by three quarters, and has virtually eliminated laying
babies face down as a cause of cot deaths – thus leaving smoking as the chief cause of cot death.