Nation IN BRIEF : NATIONWIDE : Smoking by Mother, Risk to Baby Linked
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From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Women who smoke during pregnancy are nearly twice as likely as nonsmokers to deliver underweight babies, the National Center for Health Statistics said, and low weight at birth is the single most important predictor of infant death. About one mother in five smoked while pregnant during 1989, the first year for which the information was available. The report said the babies of older mothers and of women who smoked heavily ran the highest risk of low birth weight.
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