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Association between environmental tobacco smoke before and during pregnancy and the risk of adverse birth outcomes: a birth cohort study in Wuhan, China

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Abstract

Associations between environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and the risk of adverse birth outcomes may be confounded. We aimed to clarify the associations of ETS before and during pregnancy with the risk of adverse birth outcomes and determine whether the associations were modified by key potential confounders. A total of 7147 non-smoking mothers from the Tongji Maternal and Child Health Cohort (TMCHC) in Wuhan, China, were included in the final analyses. ETS status was self-reported by pregnant women at their first antenatal care visit before 16 gestational weeks. Information on birth outcomes was extracted from delivery records. Poisson regression was used to identify the association between ETS before and during pregnancy and the risk of adverse birth outcomes. Exposures to ETS before and during pregnancy were reported by 645 (9.0%) and 464 (6.5%) mothers, respectively. Compared with no ETS, continued ETS during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of preterm birth (PTB) (RR: 1.55, 95% CI: 1.07, 2.25) after adjustment for potential confounders. The association remained consistent in medically indicated PTB and late PTB. The risk of PTB associated with continued ETS during pregnancy was significantly increased in mothers more educated (P for interaction < 0.05). However, the increased risk of low birth weight (LBW) or small for gestational age (SGA) births by ETS during pregnancy was not observed. Exposure to ETS during pregnancy was associated with a higher risk of PTB, but not LBW or SGA births in a Chinese birth cohort.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the participants and staff in the TMCHC for their valuable contributions.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Program on Basic Research Project of China (No. 2013FY114200) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (HUST2019kfyXMPY008)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Hubei Key Laboratory of Food Nutrition and Safety, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 13 Hangkong Road, Wuhan, Hubei, 430030, People’s Republic of China

    Xi Chen, Li Huang, Chunrong Zhong, Qian Li, Renjuan Chen, Xuefeng Yang, Liping Hao & Nianhong Yang

  2. Maternal and Child Health Hospital of Hubei Province, Wuhan, Hubei, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Guoqiang Sun & Zhichun Jin

  3. Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wuhan, Hubei, 430079, People’s Republic of China

    Hongying Yang

Authors
  1. Xi Chen
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  2. Li Huang
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  3. Chunrong Zhong
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  4. Qian Li
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  5. Renjuan Chen
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  10. Hongying Yang
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  11. Nianhong Yang
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Contributions

NY conceived the idea for TMCHC and managed the project. XC, LH, CZ, QL, RC, GS, ZJ, XY, LH, HY, and NY conducted the survey and collected data in Wuhan, China. XC contributed to statistical analysis and wrote the manuscript. NY participated in the discussions concerning the design, interpretation of results, and revision of the paper. All authors contributed to the final approval of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nianhong Yang.

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Ethics approval

The study was approved by the Ethics Review Committee of Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (No. 201302).

Consent for publication

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Lotfi Aleya

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Chen, X., Huang, L., Zhong, C. et al. Association between environmental tobacco smoke before and during pregnancy and the risk of adverse birth outcomes: a birth cohort study in Wuhan, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 27230–27237 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12626-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12626-1

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