Vaping, Drinking Before Pregnancy Not Tied to Higher Risk of Miscarriage: Daily Dose

_{©New Africa/AdobeStock}

Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

Last week, we reported on findings from 2 analyses of participants in the North American-based Pregnancy Study Online (PRESTO) preconception cohort trial that were presented at the American Urological Association (AUA) 2024 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, May 3-6.

PRESTO is a cohort analysis of couples planning pregnancy from 2013 – 2023. All PRESTO female participants and their male partners completed baseline questionnaires during the preconception period, which collected information on demographics and lifestyle characteristics, including alcohol consumption and nicotine vaping and other tobacco use. Women then completed bimonthly follow-up questionnaires for 12 months regarding status of pregnancy.

The studies

Alcohol use and spontaneous abortion. For the first study, researchers analyzed data from 9414 female participants, as well as 2613 couples with complete data from both partners on alcohol consumption. They categorized alcohol consumption as none; light (1 – 7 drinks per week); moderate (8 – 14/week); and heavy (≥14/week). Looking at the full cohort, researchers reported that 60% of female participants reported light drinking, 11% reported moderate drinking, and 3% reported heavy drinking. Among participants in the couple-based cohort, half (49%) of men reported light drinking, 20% moderate, and 12% heavy drinking.

Vaping, other tobacco use and spontaneous abortion. For the second analysis, researchers had complete questionnaire data on use of tobacco for 6136 women and 1668 couples. At baseline, current vaping was reported by 13% of women in the full cohort, current cigarette smoking by 3%, and former smoking by 11%, according to the study abstract. Among couples, 19% of men reported current vaping.

The findings

Results from the first analysis showed that the primary outcome, spontaneous abortion, occurred in approximately 1 in every 5 pregnancies in both the couple-based cohort (22%) and the full cohort (21%). When they evaluated the full cohort investigators reported no significant risk of spontaneous abortion among women with moderate (HR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.83 – 1.13) and heavy (HR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.64 – 1.15) alcohol consumption vs among women who did not drink. In contrast, they found a slightly lower risk of spontaneous abortion among women who reported light drinking during preconception vs those who reported no use of alcohol (HR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.79 – 0.98).

Data from the second analysis showed that 22% of pregnancies ending in spontaneous abortion in the full cohort and 24% doing so in the couples cohort. In a full-cohort comparison of risk associated with no tobacco use by women vs types of tobacco use, investigators reported no significant associations for female vaping only, female smoking only, or female vaping plus smoking.

Click here for more details.