Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition 2007;92:F484-F488
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Effect of parental smoking on cotinine levels in newborns
1 Department of Child Health, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
2 Department of Medical Education, University of Warwick, Warwick, UK
3 Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
4 Department of Medical Education, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
Dr Mike Wailoo, Room 520, RKCSB, University of Leicester, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester LE2 7LX, UK; mw33{at}le.ac.uk
Background: Smoking is a major risk factor for cot death. Many infants smoke passively as a result of parental smoking. This paper reports on infants exposed to a smoking environment and how they accumulate metabolites of cigarette smoke, such as cotinine, which may be physiologically harmful.
Aim: To assess cotinine levels in infants of smoking parents.
Method: Cotinine excretion in urine was assessed in 104 infants, of whom 71 had smoking parents and 33 had non-smoking parents. All cotinine levels were measured at approximately 12 weeks of age. The subjects were selected from a database of infants in developmental physiological studies which assessed the impact of various factors on early postnatal development.
Results: On average babies with at least one parent who was a current cigarette smoker excreted 5.58 (95% CI 3.4 to 9.5) times as much cotinine in the urine as did the babies of non-smoking parents. Maternal smoking was the largest contributing factor. Co-sleeping (p = 0.037) and the minimum room temperature (p = 0.028) were significant contributory factors.
Conclusion: Infants from smoking households accumulate cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, which may have a detrimental effect on the cardiorespiratory system.
Keywords: passive smoking; infant; cotinine; nicotine; SIDS
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Cohen, G., Vella, S., Jeffery, H., Lagercrantz, H., Katz-Salamon, M.
(2008). Cardiovascular Stress Hyperreactivity in Babies of Smokers and in Babies Born Preterm. Circulation
118: 1848-1853
[Abstract] [Full Text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
-
All Versions of this Article:
adc.2006.108506v1
92/6/F484 most recent - Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in ADC Online
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
