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Philip R. J. Burch, PhD; M. Susan Chesters, PhD
University of Leeds Leeds, England

JAMA. 1986;255(8):1019.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The results of two randomized controlled intervention trials of antismoking advice during pregnancy have now been reported.^1,2 In the first, carried out by Donovan¹ in 1972 and 1973 in London, the mean birth weight for singleton live births in the control group was 12 g higher than in the intervention group; the difference was not statistically significant.¹ In the second trial, carried out in the United States and reported in 1984, the mean birth-weight difference (92 g) was in the opposite direction; it was statistically significant (P<.05) and corroborated the hypothesis that cigarette smoking during later stages of pregnancy causes a reduction in fetal growth.²

There is no clear explanation² for the divergent results between the two trials but Berman and colleagues³ suggest that if answers to three questions could be given "in the causal direction, we may then truly be . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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