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Tobacco smoking and breastfeeding: Effect on the lactation process, breast milk composition and infant development. A

Marta Napierala1, Jan Mazela2, T Allen Merritt3

  • 1Laboratory of Environmental Research, Department of Toxicology, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, 30 Dojazd Street, 60-631 Poznan, Poland.

Environmental Research
|August 15, 2016
PubMed

Approximately 10% of women report smoking during pregnancy. The number of breastfeeding women who relapse back to smoking is even greater. Smoking may cause adverse changes to the milk's composition by not only reducing its protective properties, but also by affecting the infant's health. The pathophysiological mechanisms underlying these adverse effects are not entirely known. This article is a review of previous reports about the effects of smoking on the lactation process, breast milk composition and infant development. A systematic search for English language articles published until 2015 was made, using a MEDLINE data. The key search terms were "smoking and breastfeeding", "smoking and lactation", "smoking and milk composition", "nicotine and breast milk". Studies have shown that nicotine levels in breast milk of women who smoke are three times higher than those in the plasma levels. Breast milk volume is reduced and the duration of lactation period is shorter. Smoking causes adverse changes to the milk's composition by not only reducing its protective properties, but also affecting infants' response to breastfeeding and to breast milk.

Keywords:
Breast milk compositionHuman milkInfantLactationSmoking women

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