[Smoking as a risk factor in pregnancy? Epidemiology of smoking and sequelae in pregnancy].

There's a controversy in the discussion concerning the effects of smoking in pregnancy. To find out, how many women smoke in pregnancy, to which social class they belong and which influence smoking has on perinatal outcome, we analysed more than 140,000 pregnancies registered in the Lower Saxony Perinatal Survey from 1980 to 1985. About 25% of these women smoked in pregnancy. This rate and the number of cigarettes remained unchanged within the six years. Women from lower social class, young and single pregnants smoked the most. Gestational age did not change, but children of smokers were smaller, had a lower birth weight and a smaller circumference of the head. Smoking did not influence perinatal mortality, Apgar-Score and arterial cord-blood-pH. The first pediatric examination showed a higher rate of small-for-date children and of newborns with encephalopathie. The injuries of smoking are most obviously by a high rate of hypotrophic children. Only because of good antenatal and perinatal care there are no further serious complications for the offspring.