Smoking raises risk to infants
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Smoking early in pregnancy increases the risk of having babies with heart defects, according to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Women who smoked any time from the month before pregnancy to the third month are more likely to give birth to infants with congenital heart defects than those who didn’t smoke, the CDC said. Heavier smoking was associated with higher risk.
Congenital heart defects, which are flaws in the structure of the heart, occur in eight to 10 of every 1,000 live births in the U.S., and many of the infants die in the first year of life.
