Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort

Objective: To compare risk of stillbirth between maternal smokers and those prescribed NRT during pregnancy. Design: Cross-sectional analysis nested in a pregnancy cohort with longitudinal routinely-recorded medical data. Setting: United Kingdom primary care; The Health Improvement Network (TH...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dhalwani, Nafeesa N., Szatkowski, Lisa, Coleman, Tim, Fiaschi, Linda, Tata, Laila J.
Format: Article
Published: Oxford University Press 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49138/
_version_ 1848797930928996352
author Dhalwani, Nafeesa N.
Szatkowski, Lisa
Coleman, Tim
Fiaschi, Linda
Tata, Laila J.
author_facet Dhalwani, Nafeesa N.
Szatkowski, Lisa
Coleman, Tim
Fiaschi, Linda
Tata, Laila J.
author_sort Dhalwani, Nafeesa N.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Objective: To compare risk of stillbirth between maternal smokers and those prescribed NRT during pregnancy. Design: Cross-sectional analysis nested in a pregnancy cohort with longitudinal routinely-recorded medical data. Setting: United Kingdom primary care; The Health Improvement Network (THIN) general practice database Population: 220,630 singleton pregnancies ending in live or stillbirth, 2001-2012 Methods: Women were categorised into three groups: NRT (prescribed during pregnancy or one month before conception); smokers; controls (non-smokers without a pregnancy NRT prescription). Main Outcome Measure: odds ratios (OR) adjusted to maternal characteristics and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for stillbirth Results: A total of 805 pregnancies ended in stillbirth (3.6/1,000 births). Absolute risks of stillbirth in NRT and smoker groups were both 5/1,000 births compared with 3.5/1,000 births in the control group. Compared with the control group, the adjusted odds of stillbirth in the NRT group was not statistically significant (OR=1.35, 95% CI 0.91-2.00), although it was similar in magnitude to that in the smokers group (OR=1.41, 95% CI 1.13-1.77). Conclusions: We found no evidence of a statistically significant association between being prescribed NRT during pregnancy and odds of stillbirth compared with non-smoking women. Although our study had much larger numbers than any previously, an even larger study with biochemically-validated smoking outcome data and close monitoring of NRT use throughout pregnancy is required to exclude effects on findings of potential exposure misclassification.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:11:42Z
format Article
id nottingham-49138
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:11:42Z
publishDate 2018
publisher Oxford University Press
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-491382020-05-04T19:28:57Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49138/ Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort Dhalwani, Nafeesa N. Szatkowski, Lisa Coleman, Tim Fiaschi, Linda Tata, Laila J. Objective: To compare risk of stillbirth between maternal smokers and those prescribed NRT during pregnancy. Design: Cross-sectional analysis nested in a pregnancy cohort with longitudinal routinely-recorded medical data. Setting: United Kingdom primary care; The Health Improvement Network (THIN) general practice database Population: 220,630 singleton pregnancies ending in live or stillbirth, 2001-2012 Methods: Women were categorised into three groups: NRT (prescribed during pregnancy or one month before conception); smokers; controls (non-smokers without a pregnancy NRT prescription). Main Outcome Measure: odds ratios (OR) adjusted to maternal characteristics and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for stillbirth Results: A total of 805 pregnancies ended in stillbirth (3.6/1,000 births). Absolute risks of stillbirth in NRT and smoker groups were both 5/1,000 births compared with 3.5/1,000 births in the control group. Compared with the control group, the adjusted odds of stillbirth in the NRT group was not statistically significant (OR=1.35, 95% CI 0.91-2.00), although it was similar in magnitude to that in the smokers group (OR=1.41, 95% CI 1.13-1.77). Conclusions: We found no evidence of a statistically significant association between being prescribed NRT during pregnancy and odds of stillbirth compared with non-smoking women. Although our study had much larger numbers than any previously, an even larger study with biochemically-validated smoking outcome data and close monitoring of NRT use throughout pregnancy is required to exclude effects on findings of potential exposure misclassification. Oxford University Press 2018-01-31 Article PeerReviewed Dhalwani, Nafeesa N., Szatkowski, Lisa, Coleman, Tim, Fiaschi, Linda and Tata, Laila J. (2018) Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 21 (4). pp. 409-415. ISSN 1469-994X Stillbirth; Nicotine replacement therapy; Smoking; Pregnancy; Maternal smoking https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/21/4/409/4831224 doi:10.1093/ntr/nty019 doi:10.1093/ntr/nty019
spellingShingle Stillbirth; Nicotine replacement therapy; Smoking; Pregnancy; Maternal smoking
Dhalwani, Nafeesa N.
Szatkowski, Lisa
Coleman, Tim
Fiaschi, Linda
Tata, Laila J.
Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort
title Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort
title_full Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort
title_fullStr Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort
title_full_unstemmed Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort
title_short Stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large UK pregnancy cohort
title_sort stillbirth among women prescribed nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy: analysis of a large uk pregnancy cohort
topic Stillbirth; Nicotine replacement therapy; Smoking; Pregnancy; Maternal smoking
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49138/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49138/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49138/