Innocent victims of passive smoking: An institutional experience.

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the impact of exposure to second hand smoking on fetal birth weight and length. Study Design: Comparative Cross Sectional study. Setting: Physiology Department of Shaikh Zayed Postgraduate Medical Institute. Period: December 2015 to May 2016. Material & Methods: Non-probability convenience sampling was used to collect data from 120 women and their neonates, who were further divided in four equal groups based on level of exposure to second hand smoking. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data regarding level of exposure of mothers, while weight and length of neonates were measured objectively. Results: Mean birth weight (kg) in group-1 was 3.31 ± 0.50, in group-2 was 3.00 ± 0.28, in group-3 was 2.92 ± 0.48 and in group-4 was 2.66 ± 0.41. The p-value calculated by one way ANOVA was 0.001 which shows that birth weight was significantly different in all the groups. Mean birth weight of neonates showed inverse relation with SHS exposure of the mothers. Mean length (cm) of neonates in group-1 was 49.30 ± 1.70, in group-2 was 48.77 ± 1.47, in group-3 was 49.40 ± 2.12 and in group-4 was 48.53 ± 1.65. It was seen that there was no significant difference in length of neonates belonging to different groups. Incidence of low birth weight among all the groups was 11.6%. Conclusion: Second hand smoking of mothers affects birth weight of neonates which in turn influence the intellectual abilities and developmental milestones of neonates. Awareness should be made in society in this regard to prevent the burden of the disease in silent victims of smoking.