Maternal smoking and dental caries

Abstract

There have been earlier reports of a positive association between environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and caries in children. However, this has not been confirmed in younger children, and there has been little information about the effect of maternal smoking in pregnancy. The effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy and postnatal household smoking on the prevalence of dental caries was investigated in over 2000 children by Tanaka et al from the University of Tokyo. Maternal smoking throughout pregnancy was associated with an increased prevalence of caries at age 3 years. Current, ETS exposure at home was independently positively associated with dental caries, although former postnatal ETS was not associated. These data contribute to the ever increasing body of evidence incriminating ETS in a large number of human diseases. Article page 410▸