Roswell Park/University at Buffalo study finds significant risk for women who never smoked
Secondhand smoking is linked with pregnancy loss, including miscarriage, stillbirth and tubal ectopic pregnancy, according to new research from scientists at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) and the University at Buffalo (UB). The study findings, published online by the journal Tobacco Control, mark a significant step toward clarifying the risks of secondhand smoke exposure.
"This study demonstrated that pregnancy outcomes can be correlated with secondhand smoking. Significantly, women who have never smoked but were exposed to secondhand smoke were at greater risk for fetal loss," says the study's lead investigator, Andrew Hyland, PhD, Chair of RPCI's Department of Health Behavior.
While there was previously some evidence that smoking during pregnancy was associated with the three outcomes of fetal loss studied here - spontaneous abortion or miscarriage (loss of a fetus before 20 weeks of gestation), stillbirth (loss of a fetus after 20 or more weeks of gestation) and tubal ectopic pregnancy - such evidence for secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure had been limited. This study is significant in two ways: One, it considered lifetime SHS exposure rather than only during pregnancy or reproductive years, taking into consideration smoke exposure in participants' childhood and adult years. Two, the comparison group of never-smokers was limited to women without any SHS exposure, producing a truer control group compared to previous studies.
The large sample size and comprehensive assessment of SHS exposure added strength to the findings. Historical reproductive data, current and former smoking status, and details about SHS exposure over lifetime were collected from the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study. This allowed for a study group of 80,762 women.
