ABSTRACT
In order to determine whether maternal smoking before or during pregnancy, or both,
is associated with a reduced risk for preeclampsia in Japanese subjects, we conducted
a case-control study that took other risk factors for preeclampsia into consideration.
Seventy-one preeclampsia patients were matched with 142 controls for parity and age.
Information from a self-administered questionnaire and clinical data such as maternal
age, parity, family history of hypertension, prepregnancy body mass index (BMI), and
pregnancy outcomes were analyzed. No significant difference was found between the
groups in smoking rates before and during pregnancy (38.0 and 18.3% in preeclampsia
patients and 38.0 and 16.9% in controls, respectively). However, classification of
the subjects according to the presence of "prepregnancy high body mass (BMI ≥ 24)"
revealed a significant association between maternal smoking before pregnancy and preeclampsia
in women with a prepregnancy high body mass (a smoking rate of 47.6% in patients with
preeclampsia and 7.1% in controls, p < 0.05). This result suggests that there is a
clear racial difference in the manifestation of preeclampsia with respect to the effect
of smoking and that early intervention, particularly before pregnancy, to get obese
women to stop smoking may be effective for preventing preeclampsia.
KEYWORD
Preeclampsia - smoking - body mass index - case-control study
