The effect of Swedish snuff (snus) on offspring birthweight: a sibling analysis.
Juarez, Sol Pia LU and Merlo, Juan LU
(2013)
In PLoS ONE
8(6).
- Abstract
- Current observational evidence indicates that maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with reduced birthweight in offspring. However, less is known about the effect of smokeless tobacco on birthweight and about the possible mechanisms involved in this relationship. This paper studies the effect of Swedish smokeless tobacco (snus) on offspring birthweight comparing the results obtained from a conventional linear regression analysis and from a quasi-experimental sibling design using a multilevel linear regression analysis. From the Swedish Medical Birth Register, we investigated 604,804 singletons born between 2002 and 2010. From them, we isolated 8,861 siblings from 4,104 mothers with discrepant snus-use habits (i.e., women who had... (More)
- Current observational evidence indicates that maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with reduced birthweight in offspring. However, less is known about the effect of smokeless tobacco on birthweight and about the possible mechanisms involved in this relationship. This paper studies the effect of Swedish smokeless tobacco (snus) on offspring birthweight comparing the results obtained from a conventional linear regression analysis and from a quasi-experimental sibling design using a multilevel linear regression analysis. From the Swedish Medical Birth Register, we investigated 604,804 singletons born between 2002 and 2010. From them, we isolated 8,861 siblings from 4,104 mothers with discrepant snus-use habits (i.e., women who had at least one pregnancy during which they used snus and at least one other pregnancy in which they did not). The conventional analysis shows that continuous snus use throughout the pregnancy reduces birthweight in 47 g while quitting or relapsing snus has a minor and statistically non-significant effect (-6 g and -4 g, respectively). However, using a sibling analysis the effect observed for mothers who continue to use snus during pregnancy is less intense than that observed with previous conventional analyses (-20 g), and this effect is not statistically significant. Sibling analysis shows that quitting or relapsing snus use after the first trimester slightly reduces birthweight (14 g).However, this small change is not statistically significant. The sibling analysis provides strong causal evidence indicating that exposure to snus during pregnancy has a minor effect on birthweight reduction. Our findings provide a new piece of causal evidence concerning the effect of tobacco on birthweight and support the hypothesis that the harmful effect of smoking on birthweight is not mainly due to nicotine. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3913248
- author
- Juarez, Sol Pia
LU
and Merlo, Juan
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2013
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- PLoS ONE
- volume
- 8
- issue
- 6
- article number
- e65611
- publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000320322400038
- pmid:23776512
- scopus:84878911120
- ISSN
- 1932-6203
- DOI
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0065611
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c42f5019-fa17-4e2d-b004-74536d60799d (old id 3913248)
- alternative location
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23776512?dopt=Abstract
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 13:25:33
- date last changed
- 2022-04-06 05:04:35
@article{c42f5019-fa17-4e2d-b004-74536d60799d,
abstract = {{Current observational evidence indicates that maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with reduced birthweight in offspring. However, less is known about the effect of smokeless tobacco on birthweight and about the possible mechanisms involved in this relationship. This paper studies the effect of Swedish smokeless tobacco (snus) on offspring birthweight comparing the results obtained from a conventional linear regression analysis and from a quasi-experimental sibling design using a multilevel linear regression analysis. From the Swedish Medical Birth Register, we investigated 604,804 singletons born between 2002 and 2010. From them, we isolated 8,861 siblings from 4,104 mothers with discrepant snus-use habits (i.e., women who had at least one pregnancy during which they used snus and at least one other pregnancy in which they did not). The conventional analysis shows that continuous snus use throughout the pregnancy reduces birthweight in 47 g while quitting or relapsing snus has a minor and statistically non-significant effect (-6 g and -4 g, respectively). However, using a sibling analysis the effect observed for mothers who continue to use snus during pregnancy is less intense than that observed with previous conventional analyses (-20 g), and this effect is not statistically significant. Sibling analysis shows that quitting or relapsing snus use after the first trimester slightly reduces birthweight (14 g).However, this small change is not statistically significant. The sibling analysis provides strong causal evidence indicating that exposure to snus during pregnancy has a minor effect on birthweight reduction. Our findings provide a new piece of causal evidence concerning the effect of tobacco on birthweight and support the hypothesis that the harmful effect of smoking on birthweight is not mainly due to nicotine.}},
author = {{Juarez, Sol Pia and Merlo, Juan}},
issn = {{1932-6203}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{6}},
publisher = {{Public Library of Science (PLoS)}},
series = {{PLoS ONE}},
title = {{The effect of Swedish snuff (snus) on offspring birthweight: a sibling analysis.}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/3363399/4092004.pdf}},
doi = {{10.1371/journal.pone.0065611}},
volume = {{8}},
year = {{2013}},
}