Exposure to second-hand smoking as a predictor of fetal loss: Egypt Demographic and Health Survey 2014

Abstract

Exposure to tobacco smoking during pregnancy has been shown to be associated with elevated risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as miscarriage and stillbirth. However, little is known regarding the association between passive smoking and birth outcomes. This study aims to measure the prevalence of passive smoking and assess its relationship with adverse birth outcomes. Self-reported birth outcomes (stillbirth/miscarriage/abortion) was the dependent variable that was regressed against self-reported exposure to household smoking along with various individual and community-level factors. We used propensity score matching to identify the sample and used regression analysis to quantify the association between passive smoking and birth outcomes. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to check for the robustness of the associations. Of the 5540 women studied, about half (50.3%, 95% CI=49.3-51.3) reported being exposed to smoking by household members. The prevalence of stillbirth was 14.6% (95% CI=13.9-15.3). In the logistic regression analysis, the confounder-adjusted OR of stillbirth in relation to exposure to smoking was 1.321 (95% CI=1.150-1.517). In the subgroup analysis, we found that the association was significant among certain age groups only. The findings of the present study imply a mildly positive association between the occurrence of stillbirth and exposure to smoking in the household.