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From the California Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention
Researchers at the California Center studied how genes can interact
with a mother’s smoking to cause oral clefts.
- Oral clefts are birth defects that occur in the lip, the
roof of the mouth (hard palate), or the soft tissue in the back
of the mouth (soft palate).
- This study looked at a gene—called TGF-alpha—that helps in
the forming of the palate and mouth. The TGF-alpha gene has
several forms.
- The study found that women who smoked during pregnancy were
almost twice as likely to have babies with oral clefts. The more
the mother smoked, the higher the risk.
- The hazard of a mother’s smoking was even greater for the 1
in 7 babies with the A2 form of the TGF-alpha gene. Babies with
this form of the gene were 8 times more likely to have oral
clefts if their mothers smoked. Babies born to nonsmoking
mothers did not have a higher risk.
- Nonsmoking mothers who had been around secondhand smoke had
a very small, if any, increased risk of having a baby with an
oral cleft. A father’s smoking increased the risk of oral clefts
only if the mother smoked too.
Source: California Birth Defects Monitoring Program. Smoking and
Oral Clefts. 1999. [cited 2007 Oct 16]. Available from:
http://www.cbdmp.org/pdf/smokingoralclefts.pdf
[Back to California Center
information]
Date:
March 11, 2009
Content source: National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental
Disabilities
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