AUTHOR=Lacerda Rosa Helena Wanderley , Furtado Paulo Germano Cavalcanti , Vieira Alexandre Rezende 

TITLE=Maternal Smoking Leads to Larger Cleft Palate Defects

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Dental Medicine

VOLUME=1

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/dental-medicine/articles/10.3389/fdmed.2020.632037

DOI=10.3389/fdmed.2020.632037

ISSN=2673-4915

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> Oral clefts are birth defects that affect 500–1,000 livebirths depending on the geographic area. Maternal smoking increases the risk of stillbirths, prematurity, low birth weight, and oral clefts.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> In this case series, we measured the cleft palate defect of 10 children born from mothers who smoked during pregnancy and compared with measurements of 36 children born from mothers who did not smoke.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> Palate defects tended to be larger in the group that the mother smoked during pregnancy.</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> Smoking during pregnancy aggravates the size of the cleft defect in the palate.</p>