Reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke by at least nine per day after the first prenatal visit can add 100g or more to your baby's weight, according to a new study by the Vermont Cancer Center in Burlington.

The study, which involved 392 pregnant women, showed that an expectant mother's risk of delivering an underweight baby increased with the number of cigarettes she smoked. Women who gave up cigarettes had the fewest low-birth-weight babies.

"Our study clearly confirms the detrimental effect of smoking on birth weight," says Dr. Roger H. Secker-Walker, director of health promotion research at the Vermont Cancer Center, in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The study participants were asked how many cigarettes they smoked per day at the time of their first prenatal visit, and then again at 36 weeks gestation. The women's carbon monoxide level was measured through their breath, using a standard carbon monoxide monitor.

By eliminating nine cigarettes a day, there was a decrease of eight parts per million in the amount of exhaled carbon monoxide, the study showed. Using a simple regression equation, the researchers determined the effects of the number of cigarettes smoked per day on birth weight. So if a woman who smoked 13 cigarettes each day eliminated nine cigarettes, she was likely to give birth to a baby who weighed nearly the same as a non-smoker's baby.

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