Effects of carbon monoxide on three groups of people

I first became interested in this topic when I saw a newspaper article in the Western Australian, dated Wednesday, May 14th, 1980. This article was suggesting that the nicotine in cigarettes might not be the cause of prematurity, still-birth, malformation and low birth weight in babies of smoking mothers, as had previously been thought. The article suggested that the carbon monoxide in the fumes of cigarettes might be causing more harm, as carbon monoxide's finity [sic] for haemoglobin is 50C times that of oxygen joining the Hb in the red blood cells and, if a high level was in the bloodstream, then the foetus could be deprived of oxygen.