effect of cigarette smoking on pregnancy and labour outcome

ABSTRACT

This work was done on 60 pregnant smokers who were matched very closely with another 60 pregnant non smokers for age, height, weight [at the start of pregnancy], parity groups, social class, education and giving birth to habibes of the same sex. The trial was done to study the effect of maternal cigarette smoking on pregnancy and labour outcome. A statistically significant difference was observed for spontaneous abortion[P < 0.05, pre-eclampsia [P < 0.001], I.U.G.R. [p < 0-.001] and anaemia [P <0.05]. A non significant difference was observed for the mean admission dilatation of the cervix [in cms] head level [in 1/5th], observed first and second stage of labour and also for cervical dilatation per hour. Concerning the postnatal findings a significant difference was observed for the infant birth weight and length and also for placental weight [P < 0.05]. The mechanism of action of tobacco is discussed