PORTLAND, Ore., May 3 (UPI) -- High doses of vitamin C may be able to counteract some of the negative impacts to unborn babies when their mothers smoke say Oregon scientists.
Despite the fact that smoking while pregnant can cause premature delivery and growth retardation, 11 percent of pregnant women continue to smoke. Some will lose their babies as a result -- smoking has been blamed for 5 to 10 percent of all fetal and neonatal deaths.
To determine if vitamin C could offset some of smoking's ill effects researchers studied three groups of infant monkeys. Mothers of one group were given regular doses of nicotine while the second group received doses of nicotine and vitamin C. The third control group was given nothing.
"We found that animals exposed to nicotine prior to birth had reduced air flow in the lungs compared to animals that were given nicotine and vitamin C. In fact, the nicotine plus vitamin C group had lung air flow close to that of a normal animal," said Eliot Spindel, senior author of the paper.
The research, conducted at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Portland, appears in the current edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
