August 31, 2011 - A new study in Sweden has shown that babies born to snuff-using mothers were more likely to have breathing problems than those whose moms smoked cigarettes while pregnant. Snuff—ground tobacco that is high in nicotine but doesn’t generate the same additional chemicals as cigarette smoke because it’s not burned—is generally thought be safer than cigarettes, said the study authors.  However, according to Dr. Anna Gunnerbeck, the lead researcher from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, smokeless tobacco “may have a little bit different effect than smoking, because smoking has the combustion products, but it’s still not safe during pregnancy.”  By comparing information gathered from moms when they were a few months pregnant—including about snuff and cigarette use—with babies’ hospital records, researchers found that one or two in every 1,000 babies born to moms who didn’t use snuff or cigarettes developed apnea, which occurs when a newborn stops breathing, sometimes accompanied by an irregular heartbeat. For babies whose moms smoked during pregnancy, that risk increased by about 50 percent. And for those whose moms used snuff, the rate was more than twice as high as in babies born to mothers who didn’t use any kind of tobacco.

The study suggests that “you have to urge women to try to stop (smoking) without nicotine as replacement” during pregnancy, Gunnerbeck said. She speculated that the high levels of nicotine in snuff and other smoking replacements may have a direct effect on the baby’s developing nervous system. Gunnerbeck remarked, that when looking at the whole picture, “I would say smoking is generally more dangerous than using snuff if you look at the overall risk with pregnancy complications and complications at birth.”

For more information, please visit http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/29/us-pregnancy-cigarettes-idUSTRE77S60R20110829