Maternal smoking and increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome: A meta-analysis

Maternal smoking is detrimental to the development of fetuses and neonates. This meta-analysis was performed to measure the accumulated association of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) risk with both prenatal and postnatal maternal smoking. The odds ratio (OR) corresponding to the 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to assess the associations between maternal smoking and SIDS risk. The statistical heterogeneity among studies was assessed with the Q-test and I2 statistics. The data for this meta-analysis were available from 35 case-control studies. The prenatal and postnatal maternal smoking was associated with a significantly increased risk of SIDS (OR = 2.25, 95% CI = 2.03–2.50 for prenatal maternal smoking analysis, and OR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.77–2.19 for postnatal maternal smoking analysis, respectively) by random effects model. After stratified analyses, regardless of prenatal or postnatal smoking, heavy cigarette consumption increased the risk of SIDS and significantly elevated SIDS risk was found to be associated with co-sleeping with postnatal smoking mothers. Our results suggested that maternal smoking were associated with elevated SIDS risk, the effects were dose-dependent. In addition, SIDS risk was significantly increased in infants co-sleeping with postnatal smoking mothers.