zur Nieden Research Group at UC Riverside
Tobacco Use & Pregnancy
Environmental tobacco smoke—such as the smoke burn off from cigarette ends (dubbed sidestream or secondhand smoke)—and tobacco smoke inhaled by active smokers (known as mainstream smoke) contain a highly diverse mixture of chemicals. Cigarette smoke in particular contains over 4,000 chemicals including nicotine, tar, heavy metals (e.g., lead, cadmium), and carbon monoxide. Cigarette smoking and exposure to environmental cigarette smoke has been demonstrated to negatively impact conception and pregnancy in a number of studies.
Couples where one or both partners smoke may face fertility and conception challenges as cigarette smoke has been shown to negatively impact fertilization and sperm performance. Both types of smoke pose a battery of adverse effects on pregnancy and pregnancy complications. In particular, young embryos seem to be especially sensitive to the negative impacts posed by cigarette smoke exposure. Such consequences include increased risk of low birth weight of children born to smoking mothers as well as ectopic pregnancies, stillbirth, and physical birth defects to mothers exposed to both mainstream and sidestream smoke.
Using various models, investigations are underway to discover how exactly cigarette smoke exposure affects the developing embryo on a molecular level.
Sources:
EPA (1992) EPA Report/600/6-90/006F: Respiratory health effects of passive smoking: lung cancer and other disorders, Washington, DC.
Rogers, JM (2008) Tobacco and pregnancy: overview of exposures and effects. Birth Defects Res C Embryo Today 84, 1-15.
Saraiya M, Berg CJ, Kendrick JS, Strauss LT, Atrach HK, Ahn, YW (1998) Cigarette smoking as a risk factor for ectopic pregnancy. Am J Obstet Gynecol 178, 493-498.
Shiverick KT, Salafia AC (1999) Cigarette smoking and pregnancy I: ovarian, uterine and placental effects. Placenta 20, 265-72.
Windham GC, Hopkins B, Fenster L, Swan SH (2000) Prenatal active or passive tobacco smoke exposure and the risk of preterm delivery or low birth weight. Epidemiology 11, 427-33.
