Effects of smoking during pregnancy on retinopathy of prematurity

PurposeBackground: Tobacco smoking during pregnancy is the first preventable cause of adverse birth outcomes such as vascular and neurodevelopment disturbation.Aims: To asses how smoking during pregnancy would affect retinal vascularization causing retinopathy of prematurity.Design: An observational cross-sectional study.MethodsRecords of preterm newborns (n = 293) and tobacco expossure were reviewed. Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) grading was evaluated in accordance with the International Classification of Retinopathy of Prematurity. Factors were evaluated using a multivariate logistic regression analysisResultsAlthough most children did not develop ROP (74.1%), 10.9% has mild, 9.6% severe and 5.5% aggressive posterior retinopathy. Twenty percent of mothers smoked during pregnancy and 10.2% smoked ≥5 cigarettes per day. Children of smoking mothers showed higher rate of Anterior Progressive ROP (6.9%) than those who were not expossed (5.1%), and as much severe as higher number of cigarettes (10.9% vs 5.1%). However, these results were not statsically significative (p u003e 0.05).ConclusionsA tendency to higher severity grades of ROP in connection with heavy tobacco exposure during pregnancy was observed.