Maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy and infant ponderal index at birth in the Swedish Medical Birth Register, 1991-1992.
OBJECTIVE
This study examined the effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on infant body proportion.


METHODS
The ponderal index, defined as birthweight divided by crown-heel length cubed, was examined in 207,607 infants from the Swedish Medical Birth Register for 1991 and 1992.


RESULTS
Infant ponderal index was used as the outcome variable in an ordinary least squares continuous regression, which included early pregnancy smoking status, gestational age, and birthweight among the predictors. Ponderal index increased by 0.030 (+/- 0.0014) among infants of moderate smokers and by 0.040 (+/- 0.0017) among infants of heavy smokers, showing a dose response.


CONCLUSIONS
Smoking differentially alters the trajectory of weight vs length growth in the fetus.
Lindley
A A
AA
Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research, National Center for Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., USA. aal5@po.cwru.edu
Gray
R H
RH
Herman
A A
AA
Becker
S
S
D000328:Adult; D001724:Birth Weight; D018568:Crown-Rump Length; D005260:Female; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications; D012042:Registries; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects*; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology