Pregnant - as recommended by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco don't use any tobacco product..

September 18, 2010 - We first reported on this Swedish study back on September 6, 2010: Pregnant - it's best to be tobacco free to avoid a miscarriage..

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, maker of Camel Snus, did not comment directly on the study findings. But spokesman David Howard said in an e-mail that the company "agrees that women should not use snus or any tobacco product during pregnancy."

PAPER: Maternal Use of Swedish Snuff (Snus) and Risk of Stillbirth, Wikström, Anna-Karin; Cnattingius, Sven; Stephansson, Olof, Epidemiology online August 27, 2010, ABSTRACT..

The Swedish team (from Karolinska Institute and Uppsala University) used a national birth register with information on nearly 611,000 women who were pregnant between 1999 and 2006. Of these, 58,502 were tobacco smokers and 7,629 used snus. Overall, 1,926 of the women in the register -- or about 0.3 percent -- had a stillbirth. (Stillbirth generally refers to a pregnancy loss after the 20th week; but in this database, it was defined as a pregnancy loss after at the 28th week or later.)

The study found that women who reported using snus during pregnancy had a 60 percent higher risk of suffering a stillbirth than women who used no tobacco products. The risk was 40 percent higher for light smokers, and for heavy smokers it was more than double that of non-users of tobacco. Among the women who reported using snus, 0.5 percent (40 women) suffered a stillbirth; that compared with just under 0.3 percent (1,386 women out of more than 500,000) of those who used no tobacco products during pregnancy.

Of the 41,488 women considered light smokers -- nine or fewer cigarettes per day -- 0.4 percent (172) had a stillbirth. And among the 17,000 women who smoked more heavily, the stillbirth rate was 0.7 percent (120).

We agree with by Dr. Gregory N. Connolly, director of the Tobacco Control Research Program at the Harvard School of Public Health, that nicotine may be at least partly responsible for the increased stillbirth risk. Why do you think patients are warned NOT to smoke before surgery?? The nicotine in tobacco can interfere with healing process. Smoking interferes with healing because it reduces the blood flow to the cell the ability of hemoglobin to move oxygen and finally it reduces the amount of oxygen released to the cells. Nicotine is, among other unkind things, is a strong vasoconstrictor decreasing blood flow. (Smoking and surgery..)

Recently there has been found a direct between nicotine and breast cancer..

Reference: 'Snus' tobacco linked to stillbirth risk by Amy Norton, Reuters, 9/17/2010.