Smoking: An Important Environmental Risk Factor in Pregnancy

It is generally recognized that smoking has been one of the most public health disorders around the world. Nowadays, more and more studies have proved that smoking during pregnancy is responsible for both maternal and fetal health disorders along with several general health effects. It may lead to various kinds of pregnancy illness and cause risk to the fetus during perinatal stage. After birth, this behavior can also have harmful influences on neonates, and even on children. However, smoking during pregnancy has several adverse effects, the molecular mechanism of it remains unclear. Recently, some studies have proved that it is associated with aberrant epigenetic modifications. All of these remind us that more attention should be paid to maternal cigarette smoking, and more studies should be carried out to confirm the effects and investigate the molecular mechanisms. In this chapter, a brief review is given on the perinatal effects and long-term influences of maternal and passive smoking. We also briefly clarify the epigenetic mecha nisms underlying the adverse effects of passive smoking during pregnancy.