2008/02/15 - New research downplays impact of smoking in pregnancy

Smoking during pregnancy may not be as dangerous as is commonly supposed, new evidence suggests. A study by researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) found that if women give up smoking by the fifth month of pregnancy, the effect on the baby is negligible.

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The findings also indicate that smoking effect women from poorer backgrounds the worst, because it is usually combined with other unhealthy activities such as drinking alcohol and eating unwholesome foods.

However, middle class women suffer almost no damaging effects from smoking, even if they continue throughout pregnancy, the study found.

The study's author, Emma Tominey, research assistant at the Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE, conceded however that smoking is not completely harmless.

"We find that up to 13 per cent of children classified as low-birthweight born to smoking mothers could have been classified as healthy, had their mothers not smoked," she said.

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