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Title: Effect of restricted food supply to pregnant rats inhaling carbon monoxide on fetal weight, compared with cigarette smoke exposure

Journal Article · · Bull. Environ. Contam. Toxicol.; (United States)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01607853· OSTI ID:7025566

Although many studies have shown that cigarette smoking during gestation retarded the intrauterine fetal growth, resulting in the decreased birth weight in babies born to smoking mothers, neither causal substance nor mechanism of action to disturb fetal growth has been firmly established yet. Based on the human and animal studies, researchers have implied that fetal hypoxia induced by carbon monoxide (CO) in the cigarette smoke to be responsible for the event. A shortage in energy intake in smoking mothers also has been suspected to cause the retardation in fetal development. In the previous results (Tachi and Aoyama 1983), the weight increment in CO exposed animals was greater than that in the smoke exposed group. The phenomenon seemed to indicate that the reduction in the food intake occurs in animals which inhale the cigarette smoke, and induces the disturbance of fetal development in association with CO. In the present study, so as to evaluate the role of energy intake upon the fetal development in utero, the experiment of paired feeding with pregnant rats exposed to cigarette smoke is designed in animals which inhale the cigarette smoke, CO, or room air, following after the observation of the quantity of food taken by mothers exposed to cigarette smoke, CO, or room air.

Research Organization:
Nagoya City Univ. Medical School, Japan
OSTI ID:
7025566
Journal Information:
Bull. Environ. Contam. Toxicol.; (United States), Vol. 37:6
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English