Quitting cigarettes during pregnancy may increase obesity-related complications for both parent and baby, but Rutgers Health researchers found that reductions in stillbirths and premature deliveries outweigh these dangers and speculated that nutrition counseling could increase the benefits.
The study, which appears in Hypertension, analyzed pregnancy records from more than 22 million pregnancies to compare outcomes among smokers, nonsmokers and those who quit smoking early in pregnancy. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy – a catch-all term for complications related to high blood pressure – occurred in 6.8 percent of non-smokers, 7 percent of steady smokers and 8.6 percent of those who quit smoking when they learned they were pregnant. Risk was elevated even in quitters who didn’t gain excessive weight during pregnancy, but greater weight gain and greater total body mass index both increased risks further still. More than 17 percent of quitters who exceeded weight-gain recommendations and became obese suffered hypertensive disorders.
Such complications can pose significant health risks in pregnancy, but quitting was associated with a more than 80 percent reduction in the rate of stillbirth, which was 0.4 percent in both nonsmokers and quitters and 2.3 percent in persistent smokers. Persistent smokers were also more likely to deliver before completing 37 weeks of pregnancy. The rate of preterm delivery was 14.3 percent for persistent smokers, 7.7 percent for nonsmokers and 8.1 percent for quitters.
