Study: Clubfoot Defect May Be Caused By Smoking

According to Dr

According to Dr. Allan Hackshaw of the University College London Cancer Institute, who led a study published in the journal "Human Reproduction Update," smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of a wide range of birth defects, including skull defects, missing or deformed limbs, cleft palate, protrusion of the gastrointestinal system through the skin and heart problems and clubfoot. Smoking during pregnancy is already well known for increasing the risk of miscarriage, low birth weight and premature birth, but very few public health educational policies mention birth defects when referring to smoking and those that do are not specific; this is largely because of past uncertainty over which ones are directly linked, said Dr. Hackshaw.

Hackshaw and his colleagues surveyed the medical literature for the last 50 years looking for studies that examined smoking and birth defects. They ultimately isolated 172 reports that, collectively, found 173,687 infants born with birth defects and 11,674,332 healthy controls. Analyzing the data, they found:

- A 33% increased risk of skull defects.

- A 28% increased risk of being born with a clubfoot.

- A 28% increased risk of cleft lip or cleft palate.

- A 27% increased risk of gastrointestinal defects.

- A 26% increased risk of missing or deformed limbs.

- A 10% increased risk of heart defects.

- A 50% increased risk of gastroschisis, in which parts of the stomach or gut protrude through the skin of the abdomen.

"Now we have this evidence, advice should be more explicit about the kinds of serious defects that babies of mothers who smoke during pregnancy can suffer from," Hackshaw said. "The message from this research is that women should quit smoking before becoming pregnant, or very early on, to reduce the chance of having a baby with a serious and lifelong physical defect."

The study did not examine how smoking creates these problems. But cigarette smoke contains as many as 4,000 different chemicals, many of which could be teratogenic, meaning they could interfere with the development of a fetus. Moreover, smoking and the carbon monoxide in smoke both constrict blood vessels, impairing circulation and potentially limiting the supply of oxygen to the fetus.

Fortunately, clubfoot can be detected before the baby is born via sonogram. After birth, clubfoot can be corrected via the Ponseti Method, which has become the accepted first-line of treatment for clubfoot. It's important to seek a clubfoot doctor who specializes in treating clubfoot.

by: Dr Alireza Khosroabadi DPM

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