“Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
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“Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
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Recent research by the University of Essex has found that women who work after eight months into their pregnancy can have babies on average 230g lighter than those who stopped working between six and
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“Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
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“Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
posted at 30/7/2012 2:33 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 5
First: 30/7/2012 Last: 2/8/2012 |
Recent research by the University of Essex has found that women who work after eight months into their pregnancy can have babies on average 230g lighter than those who stopped working between six and eight months. Data collected by two UK studies and one US study shows that working after eight months into a pregnancy can cause slower growth of the baby in the womb. However, working eight months into a pregnancy does not affect the birth weight of mothers under 24, but has a “more pronounced effect in older mothers”. Possible consequences of a baby with a low birth weight include “lower chances of completing school successfully, higher risk of poor health and lower wages”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jul/28/working-eight-months-pregnancy-smoking The article provided by the Guardian does not actually draw many comparisons between the effects of a mother working after the eighth month of pregnancy and a mother smoking during her pregnancy, other than to state the effects are “equal”. So, in your opinion, is working up until your eight month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking? Are the actually effects equal? Do you agree that women should be given increased maternity leave before giving birth? |
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Re: “Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
posted at 31/7/2012 5:17 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 24
First: 21/10/2010 Last: 10/6/2013 |
I'm struggling to source the original study - apparently in the Journal of Labour Economics? It's also not covered on the NHS Choices 'Behind the Headlines' site which is always the first place I head if I want to find out quite how much the report has been twisted for media hype (!) and what the quality and scope of the original study was. |
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Re: “Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
posted at 1/8/2012 8:19 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2
First: 1/8/2012 Last: 7/3/2013 |
It seems to be this is a retrospective study which showed similar weight babies in women who worked until late in pregnancy as those who smoked. There is no evidence of increased risk of abruption, preterm labour, poor lung function, smaller organs or increased risk of cot death to name but a few and therefore for the Guardian headline to state that working into the 8th pregnancy is as harmful as smoking is mind boggling. There's not even any evidence of the consequences of smaller babies in this case though obviously that evidence is available overall but for all we know may not have such an effect in the babies of mum's who work. Ridiculously poor journalism in my view but perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised! |
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Re: “Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
posted at 1/8/2012 10:18 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 44
First: 10/2/2010 Last: 2/6/2013 |
In Response to Re: “Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”: There is no evidence of increased risk of abruption, preterm labour, poor lung function, smaller organs or increased risk of cot death to name but a few and therefore for the Guardian headline to state that working into the 8th pregnancy is as harmful as smoking is mind boggling. Posted by Abi Blumenthal Pretty much exactly what I was going to say. As a bare minimum, we'd need to see the risks of stillbirths, congenital abnormalities and infant mortality in children of mothers who work up to the 8th month to have any fair comparison to the effects of smoking; birthweight alone doesn't cut it. (EDIT: I had said miscarriages as well, but obviously that doesn't apply with regards to the effects working to 8 months...) Also, did they look at whether the mother had an elective caesarean, or at general gestational age at birth? Because if more working mothers opted for a caesar, the gestational age would be younger and the birthweight lower regardless of any other effects of working to 8 months. EDIT 2: I've looked at the actual paper now (http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.1086/664831#rid_fn9), and I can confirm that we aren't looking at an effect on gestational age alone. A few points of interest: - The effect on birth weight of not interrupting work until near delivery was much less consistent across the three different studies than the effect of smoking, and only one of the three studies showed a comparable effect (see table 3 - you're talking about 187g, 203g, or 139g of birthweight lost due to smoking, vs 168g, 161g, or 0.67g gained through "medium" rather than "late" work stoppage, or 169g, 0.86g, or 0.23g gained through "early" rather than "late" work stoppage). (Also, the definitions of "early", "medium" and "late" varied by study). - There was no effect on the risk of having a low birthweight (<2.5g) of when the mother stopped work in any of the studies, but an effect of smoking in two out of the three studies. - Controlling for antenatal care received, maternal BMI and alcohol consumption in pregnancy did not alter the effect estimates. However, these are the only such risk factors listed - they didn't look at gestational diabetes (which might influence both the probability of stopping work and birth weight), for instance.
- The effect of working near to the time of delivery was higher both in older mothers, and in mothers with a low-paid job (which the authors conjectured might be more likely to include manual labour). - No data presented on mortality or congenital abnormalities. |
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Re: “Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
posted at 4/8/2012 11:57 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 6
First: 4/8/2012 Last: 4/9/2012 |
The reasearcher found that mothers who worked late into their pregnancy as well as mothers who smoked both had babies that weighed less at birth. The babies reportedly developed slower in the womb. The Guardian notes that the effects may have longer-lasting issues than just being smaller at birth. |
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Re: “Is working up until your eighth month of pregnancy as harmful as smoking?”
posted at 4/8/2012 11:13 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 44
First: 10/2/2010 Last: 2/6/2013 |
"The Guardian notes that the effects may have longer-lasting issues than just being smaller at birth." The issue here is that The Guardian make the following misleading claim: "Working after eight months of pregnancy is as harmful for babies as smoking, according to a new study." That wasn't at all what the study concluded. The nearest their conclusions get to it as as follows: "Work interruptions before birth are beneficial, especially if taken in the last 3 months of pregnancy. Their positive impact, however, is only one-half and one-quarter of the negative effect of smoking on birth weight and fetal growth, respectively, among US mothers. Longer prenatal leaves appear to be of greater benefit for British babies, with an effect on birth outcomes that is comparable to the effect of smoking in absolute value." A comparable (in fact, slightly smaller) effect seen only in the British studies on birth weight and fetal growth does not equate to equal harm. Not when the negative effect of an earlier work interruption in the US study that was reviewed was only half the positive effect of smoking. Nor when there is no discussion of whether the increased rates of stillbirth, congenital abnormalities and infant death attributable to smoking might have any observed parallel due to working longer. It would be a fine thing if newspaper health writers could be a bit more careful about getting the science right, rather than printing a scaremongering and misleading headline. |
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