Smoking and adverse maternal and child health outcomes in Brazil.

Introduction: Numerous studies from high-income countries document the causal relationship between cigarette smoking during pregnancy and adverse maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes. Less research has been conducted in low and middle income countries, but a burgeoning literature can be found for Brazil.

Methods: We review Brazilian studies of the prevalence of maternal smoking, the relative risk of smoking-attributable adverse MCH outcomes, and present new estimates for these outcomes, using the attributable fraction method.