NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Smoking during pregnancy is known to have detrimental effects on the baby, such as increased risk of low birthweight and preterm birth, so doctors encourage expectant mothers to quit. But a new study suggests that women who use

The finding, reported in the December issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, comes from a comparison of nicotine patches versus inactive patches in 250 pregnant women who continued to smoke during their first trimester of pregnancy. Active patches contained 15 milligrams (mg) of nicotine for the first 3 weeks of the study and 10 mg for the second 3 weeks. All patches were worn for 16 hours per day. Women using the nicotine patches were no more likely to quit smoking by the end of 6 weeks than women who used inactive patches, lead author Dr. Kirsten Wisborg, of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, and colleagues report. Women did not always use the patches as instructed, which perhaps limited the researchers' ability to detect an effect of the patches on smoking. However, women who used the patches for more than 2 weeks were more likely to refrain from smoking than those who used the patches for shorter periods of time. One benefit of the nicotine patches was that infants born to mothers using the nicotine patches were on average 136 grams heavier than control infants, and women using the active nicotine patch were slightly less likely than the other women to deliver low-birthweight infants.

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