September 27, 2000 - Moms who smoke cigarettes are more likely to
have colicky babies than those mom who do not smoke, according to a
new study recently reported in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The study, conducted by Dr. Sijmen A. Reijneveld of the Netherlands
Organization of Applied Scientific Research in Leiden and colleagues,
also found that breastfeeding helps reduce the chances of colic in
babies whose mothers smoke.
"Our results clearly confirm the association of maternal smoking
and colic, but also show that the effect of breastfeeding is
protective," Reijenveld told Reuters Health.
Previous studies had suggested that colic is related to smoking only
if the mother breastfed. Colic is periods of excessive crying each day
with no apparent reason. Infants may experience colic 2 to 6 weeks
after birth, with the incidence of colic often dropping off by 12 to
16 weeks of age.
The researchers interviewed the parents of more than 3,300 infants
ages 1 to 6 months. They found 4.7 percent of the children in the
study had colic, while mothers of 1-month-old infants who smoked fewer
than 15 cigarettes a day were twice as likely to have a colicky baby
than those moms who don't smoke. Infants were almost three times
likely to have colic if their mothers smoked more than 15 cigarettes a
day.
For the mom who smokes and breastfeeds, the risk of colic was 1.5 to
2.5 times higher than that of a nonsmoker.
According to the researchers, breastfeeding may be protective against
colic because of the skin contact the infant has with the mother.
Reijneveld, the lead researcher, suggested that tobacco smoke
irritates a baby's lungs and that may lead to colic. If those findings
are true, a father who smokes around a baby may increase the chances
of having a colicky baby.
Smoking has also been found to be detrimental to children in other
ways. In her book, "Breastfeeding:
A Guide for the Medical Professional," Dr.
Ruth Lawrence sites studies in which children of smokers were
found to have more respiratory illnesses in the first year of life and
were weaned sooner from the breast than children of nonsmokers. She
also sites studies noting the correlation between smoking and colic in
breastfed babies.
"The relationship to colic in infants breastfed by a smoker is
significant. Forty percent of infants breastfed by smokers (5 or more
cigarettes a day) had infantile colic, defined as 2 to 3 hours a day
of excessive crying, compared with 26 percent of those breastfed by
nonsmokers, according to Matheson and Rivrud." (Matheson I,
Rivrud GN: The effect of smoking on lactation and infantile colic,
JAMA 261:42, 1989.)
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