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A new study has found that the risk of Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths (SUID), which includes Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), is doubled when mothers smoke as little as one cigarette per day during pregnancy.
The results of the study were published in the medical journal Pediatrics.
In their study, the researchers looked at over 20 million births, which included 19,000 unexpected infant deaths.
After analyzing the data, the researchers found that mothers smoking even one cigarette per day during their pregnancy, doubled the chances of an unexpected death occurring with their baby.
Each year, there are approximately 3,500 sudden unexpected infant deaths each year.
SUID includes SIDS, which also considers suffocation, strangulation and unknown causes of death in infants under the age of one year.
Researchers say that if women didn’t smoke during their pregnancy, they estimate that the rate of SIDS could be reduced by 22 percent, which would prevent approximately 800 infant deaths each year.
Given these alarming findings of doubling the risk of sudden unexpected infant death, researchers and medical professionals urge pregnant women to understand that there is no safe amount of smoking during pregnancy.
Smoking and pregnancy do not mix.
Medical professionals are quick to warn that vaping or other alternate nicotine-delivery devices are not any safer. Nicotine has been linked with having an effect on an important part of brainstem development in the infant.
Using alternate nicotine-delivery devices instead of cigarettes, therefore, does not diminish this risk. The bottom line is: Babies and nicotine do not mix in any form.
