Kontakt 2005, 7(3-4):330-337 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2005.064

Monitoring of impact of smoking in pregnant women to fetus development from ethnic and geographic point of viewBiomedicine

Andrej Pavúk

Prešovská univerzita v Prešove, Fakulta humanitných a prírodných vied, katedra biológie

The aim of the study is to monitor the impact of smoking in pregnant women to the fetus, the delivery and the newborn from geographic (Eastern Slovakia and the city of Brno) and ethnic (majority population of women and women from Romany ethnic minority in Eastern Slovakia) point of view.
In 2001-2002, a research was implemented in five district maternity hospitals (Bardejov, Prešov, Rožňava, Trebišov and Vranov nad Topľou) in Eastern Slovakia, focused on the topic of smoking in pregnant women. Low birth weight (lower than 2500 grams), premature delivery (delivery before 37th gravidity week) and non-physiological condition of the newborn served as indicators of reproduction damage. The information about the researched topic come from detailed anonymous questionnaires filled in by mothers, nursing doctors and nurses.
The data were obtained from 1992 pregnant women from the area of Eastern Slovakia (1376 were from majority population and 616 from Romany ethnic minority) and 262 women from Brno (only from majority population). There were significantly less never smoking women in the set of Romany women (30,2%) as in both sets of non-Romany women from Eastern Slovakia (55,2%) and Brno (59,9%). The women from Brno differed from both Slovak sets significantly in the fact that more of them stopped smoking during pregnancy.
The set of Romany women differed markedly in dominant representation of women who had reached only elementary education or apprenticeship, in representation of young mothers under 20 years (40,2%), they had significantly higher occurrence of non-physiological premature deliveries (Romanies 5,8% versus non-Romanies - 2,4%, p< 0,01) and of newborns with low birth weight (Romanies 28,7% versus non-Romanies 16,0%, p < 0,001). No significant geographic and ethnic differences in the frequency of those indicators were found among non-smoking women. Significantly higher occurrence of children with lower birth weight was found in the set of Romany women among smoking mothers (42,2%) than among non-smoking ones (10,8%), the differences in both other sets not being statistically significant.

Keywords: pregnancy; smoking; newborns; Romanies; non-Romanies

Published: November 22, 2005  Show citation