Smoking, Tobacco Exposure Through Breast Milk, and SIDS

Thank you for your comments regarding our article. In this study, breast-feeding was defined as exclusive, partial (a combination of breast and formula feeding), or bottle feeding (formula). Furthermore, for the total time period the mother breast-fed (days, weeks, or months), we recorded the number of breast-feedings and the number of cigarettes smoked per day. The three most common reasons for not choosing breast-feeding cited by case and control mothers were not wanting to, tried but failed (eg, infant would not take the breast), and postnatal use of alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs. The logistic regression model containing the interaction term between breast-feeding and smoking did adjust for passive tobacco smoke exposure from all adults smoking in the vicinity of the infant, including the mother. Although there were only a small number of women who breast-fed and smoked (sample was weighted toward nonsmokers), the results demonstrated an increased.