Effect of prenatal passive exposure to the tobacco smoke on birth weight and health indicators of the newborn

Despite a significant progress in the area of perinatal care done
recently,several perinatal hazards still exist.
The health of the mother and child is determined by numerous factors such as: demographic factors, access to health care service in the perinatal period, nutritional customs, consumption of hazardous substances including psychoactive ones, the quality of health care services during the pregnancy and risk factors present during conception period.
Numerous studies revealed which factors may affect birth weight. Active and passive exposure to the tobacco smoke in utero have been linked to various perinatal complications including lower birth weight, preterm
delivery, placenta previa, bleeding, congenital malformations and many others. The authors of this paper took the efforts to review current literature and to examine the relation of the passive exposure to toxic compounds of the tobacco smoke and pregnancy outcome. We found an extremely significant association of passive smoking and low birth weight. Furthermore, we noticed a strong link between secondhand smoking and occurrence of prematurity.