Tobacco Threatens Developing Nation Babies

Tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure during pregnancy may threaten the health of women and children, a study in Asia, Africa and Latin American found.

Approximately 8,000 pregnant women were surveyed at five sites in Latin America — Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Brazil and Guatemala — Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa and three sites in India and Pakistan in Asia.

The survey looked at the pregnant women’s use of tobacco products cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, their perceptions of the social acceptability of tobacco use for women, and exposure to secondhand smoke experienced by them and their young children.

Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, in Rockville, Md., said historically, the prevalence of smoking among women in the developing world has been very low, in part because of strong cultural constraints against women’s tobacco use.

The study, published online ahead of print of the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health, found as many as 18 percent of pregnant women currently smoked cigarettes, up to one-third used smokeless tobacco and as many of half were regularly exposed to secondhand smoke in the nations studied.