Neglecting health risks to 'cigarette babies.'(Brief Article)

The medical community, government, and media have neglected unequivocal scientific evidence that nicotine from maternal smoking causes possibly 100,000 fetal deaths each year as well as massive numbers of crib deaths, according to Theodore Slotkin, professor of pharmacology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C. Also neglected are the severe neurological problems in "cigarette babies" of women who smoked during pregnancy. This neglect comes despite the fact that the widespread, chronic ingestion of nicotine by one-fourth of all pregnant women probably produces far more damage than the more limited and episodic use of cocaine, he maintains.

"Maternal smoking during pregnancy kills between tens of thousands and possibly over 100,000 babies each year in utero. It also results in tens of thousands of admissions to intensive care units after birth and kills or brain-damages more during the birth process. Smoking is also responsible for one-third to two-thirds of all cases of sudden infant death syndrome [SIDS]. And none of these figures takes into account the enormous increase in learning disabilities, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and other behavioral problems that we know are part of the outcome of maternal smoking."

Slotkin assets that the worldwide increase in smoking will eclipse AIDS in the death and societal disruption it causes. He calls for a nationwide campaign to persuade pregnant women to quit smoking. That campaign should concentrate on counseling, although it can include careful use of nicotine patches, inhalers, and gum during the first trimester of pregnancy. This strategy is contrary to popular belief that drugs are most harmful to the fetus during that early period. His findings show that nicotine does most damage to the fetus during the second and third trimesters, meaning...