association between maternal e-cigarette use during pregnancy and low gestational weight gain.

Introduction:
This text examines the relationship between e-cigarette use during pregnancy and low gestational weight gain (GWG). The authors present their findings from a secondary data analysis of the Pregnancy Risk assessment Monitoring System (PRaMS) from 2016-2020, looking at the GWG of women who used e-cigarettes, combustible cigarettes, or both during late pregnancy.

Key Points:

* The study included 176,882 singleton births and excluded multiple births and women with missing data.
* Exposure measures included e-cigarette use and combustible cigarette use during the last 3 months of pregnancy.
* Outcome measures included pre-pregnancy BMI and total GWG, with low GWG defined differently based on pre-pregnancy BMI.
* Confounders included maternal age, education, race, marital status, type of health insurance, pre-pregnancy hypertension, pre-pregnancy diabetes, and pre-pregnancy BMI.
* The study found that cigarette users and dual users had a higher risk of low GWG compared to non-users, but e-cigarette users had a similar risk.
* after adjusting for confounders, the association between dual use and low GWG was no longer significant.
* Compared to cigarette users, dual users had a similar risk of low GWG.

Main Message:
The main message of this study is that e-cigarette use during late pregnancy does not appear to be a risk factor for low GWG. however, combustible cigarette use and dual use of e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes are associated with an increased risk of low GWG. These findings suggest that promoting smoking cessation and preventing the use of e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes during pregnancy is important for promoting healthy GWG and reducing the risk of adverse birth outcomes.

Wen X, Thomas Ma, Liu L, et al. association between maternal e-cigarette use during pregnancy and low gestational weight gain. International journal of gynaecology and obstetrics: the official organ of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics. 2023;162(1):300-308. doi:10.1002/ijgo.14672