There is more bad news for women tobacco users. While it is known that smoking affects pregnant women, those chewing tobacco — whether as mishri, paan, gutkha or simple tobacco — can also expose their newborns to risk, according to a study.Conducted by Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre, the research, published in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal, shows that women using smokeless tobacco give birth to premature babies or very low-weight babies — one of the major causes of infant deaths in the country. The study, involving 1,217 women who were seven to nine months pregnant, was conducted in Mumbai’s eight primary health centres. Of these 208 women (17.1 per cent) chewed tobacco. The study funded by the WHO’s South Asian Regional Office found that smokeless tobacco use was associated with an average reduction of 105 gm in birth weight and a reduction in gestational age of 6.2 days. The findings are almost the same when compared to women smokers.The researchers say the study is important following very high use of smokeless tobacco in South East Asia, while smoking is still not very common. In another study in Mumbai, which included 59,527 lower middle class and lower class women aged 35 years and older, 57.5 per cent currently used tobacco — 99.6 per cent of which was chewing tobacco.The information was collected by house-to-house interviews and following women who used tobacco till their delivery. Women, who had used a smokeless tobacco product at least once a day for the past six months, were categorised according as light (one to four times daily) or heavy.It was found that 206 women chewed tobacco, which was 99 pc of the study population. Among them, mishri was most commonly (80 pc) used. Forty six pc of the women (96) chewed tobacco once or twice a day and 24 pc (49) thrice or four times a day.
