Smoking and pregnancy : a review on the first major environmental risk factor of the unborn

  • Smoking cigarettes throughout pregnancy is one of the single most important avoidable causes of adverse pregnancy outcomes and it represents the first major environmental risk of the unborn. If compared with other risk factors in the perinatal period, exposure to tobacco smoke is considered to be amongst the most harmful and it is associated with high rates of long and short term morbidity and mortality for mother and child. A variety of adverse pregnancy outcomes are linked with cigarette consumption before and during pregnancy. Maternal prenatal cigarette smoke disturbs the equilibrium among the oxidant and antioxidant system, has negative impact on the genetic and cellular level of both mother and fetus and causes a large quantity of diseases in the unborn child. These smoking-induced damages for the unborn offspring manifest themselves at various times in life and for most only a very limited range of causal treatment exists. Education, support and assistance are of high importance to decrease maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality, as there are few other avoidable factors which influence a child's health that profoundly throughout its life. It is imperative that smoking control should be seen as a public health priority.

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Metadaten
Author:Mathias Mund, Frank LouwenORCiDGND, Doris KlingelhöferORCiD, Alexander Gerber
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-328032
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10126485
ISSN:1660-4601
ISSN:1661-7827
Pubmed Id:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24351784
Parent Title (English):International journal of environmental research and public health
Publisher:Molecular Diversity Preservation International
Place of publication:Basel
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2014/01/23
Date of first Publication:2013/11/29
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2014/01/23
Tag:cigarette; pregnancy; pregnant; prevention; smoking; therapy; tobacco
Volume:10
Issue:12
Page Number:15
First Page:6485
Last Page:6499
Note:
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
HeBIS-PPN:363414185
Institutes:Medizin / Medizin
Dewey Decimal Classification:6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 3.0