Yael Bar-Zeev, Ph.D., M.D., from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem-Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel, and colleagues used data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (2009 to 2015; 222,408 women) to evaluate the association between prenatal smoking and gestational diabetes mellitus.
The researchers found that both mothers who smoked the same number of cigarettes or greater and those who reduced their number of cigarettes had higher odds of gestational diabetes mellitus (adjusted odds ratios, 1.46 and 1.22, respectively). Across all subgroups of prepregnancy body mass index or gestational weight gain, smoking the same number of or more cigarettes was associated with higher odds of gestational diabetes mellitus.
“Reducing smoking during pregnancy may reduce the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus and could serve as an additional approach towards promoting smoking cessation among pregnant women,” the authors write.
