title: Smoking and female fecundity: the effect and importance of study design.
abstract: This review evaluates the evidence for a link between smoking and female fertility. Twenty-two primary papers and two reviews were found. All but three indicated a detrimental effect of smoking on reproduction despite varying considerably in their approach, definitions used and populations studied. The strength of association is small but statistically significant and a dose response relationship suggests the theory that smoking is causative. Poor design in particular and the failure to assess confounders weakened many studies and should be addressed in future studies.
authors.affiliation: Unit of Molecular Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Algernon Firth Building, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. danwilks@doctors.org.uk
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Wilks
authors.forename: Alastair W M
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Hay
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008423:Maternal Age; D011247:Pregnancy; D018566:Pregnancy, High-Risk; D015995:Prevalence; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology