Study links smoking, deformity

A plastic surgeon at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has just found a new reason for young women to stop smoking.

A study has found that pregnant women who smoke even one to 10 cigarettes per day increase the risk of their babies being born with digital deformities such as excess or missing fingers or toes.

The study, published in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, involved the review of over 6 million live births listed in the U.S. Natality database between 2001 and 2002.

The database includes information regarding maternal health risk factors and newborns' health characteristics.

"This is an extremely large study," lead author and Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania surgeon Benjamin Chang said. "We made sure to undertake a review that took into account all demographics."

Co-author Li-Xing Man, also a researcher at the children's hospital -- which is associated with but not owned by the University -- spent over a year and a half compiling the data and running the statistical analysis.

Overall, Man recorded over 5,000 children with a digital deformity whose mothers smoked during pregnancy.

These mothers did not suffer from any other medical complications that could have interfered with a healthy birth, the study said.

It also found that women who smoked one to 10 cigarettes a day increased their risk of having a child born with a finger or toe defect by 29 percent. That number increased to 78 percent for those who smoked over 20 cigarettes a day.

"What jumped out at me was the strong [correlation] between these deformities and smoking," Man said. "If these numbers didn't come up, I wouldn't have thought much of the study.

Chang, however, warned that the data can be somewhat misleading.

"The thing to keep in mind is that the risk of having these deformities is relatively low," Chang said. "So when we're talking about a 70 percent increase, it's a large increase on a fairly small number."

Nevertheless, he hopes that the results of this study provide an incentive for college-age women to stop smoking.

According to a survey by the Office of Health Education last fall, 28 percent of undergraduates at Penn engaged in "occasional smoking" in 2004 and 2005.

Office of Health Education Director Susan Villari said that while she is not familiar with the children's hospital study, she believes smoking "is a persistent concern on Penn's campus."

College sophomore Amanda Feldman, president of Tobacco Awareness at Penn, said that she hopes studies like Chang's persuade college students who have already tried their first cigarette to stop smoking.

"We have a large number of 'social smokers' who might not consider themselves addicted but still smoke a pack a day," Feldman said. "Over the long term, these studies [should] increase smoking cessation."

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