Further evidence has been published on the risks to the foetus of maternal smoking.
A team led by Dr Melek Rousian, of Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, looked at the impact of smoking in the periconceptional period, between 14 weeks before and up to ten weeks after conception.
"It is crucial to gain an insight into the effects of tobacco smoke on development as the results may benefit patient education and societal smoking policies and ultimately long-term health outcome," they write in today’s *Human Reproduction*.
They recruited 689 pregnant women who were scanned at seven to ten weeks of pregnancy and followed up for a year after giving birth.
This showed that foetuses of women who smoked ten or more cigarettes a day in the periconceptional period showed delayed development. The link was stronger for those conceived with the help of fertility treatments.
Foetuses with delayed development showed issues such as smaller femur length and lower birth weight.
"This study shows that the association of periconceptional maternal smoking and human morphological development can already be detected early in the first trimester," report the authors.
"The delay in embryonic morphology, measured in early pregnancy, cannot be recuperated during the pregnancy," they add. "The results of this study emphasise the importance of smoking intervention programs prior to conception."
Dr Rousian said: "The more cigarettes a woman smoked the greater the developmental delay. This stresses the importance of public health initiatives to promote preconception education and care, including effective programmes to assist couples to stop smoking.”
Pietersma, C. S. et al. The impact of maternal smoking on embryonic morphological development: the Rotterdam Periconception Cohort. *Human Reproduction* 23 February 2022 doi: 10.1093/humrep/deac018
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