Arctic Science Journeys
Radio Script
1996

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Low Birthweight Babies
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STORY: It was just 30 years ago that the number of low birthweight babies born to Alaska Native women was comparable to many Third World countries. While improved health care and public sanitation have dramatically increased the number of healthy newborns, doctors say such progress is threatened by an alarming rise in tobacco and alcohol use among the state's expectant Native women.

Dr. Neil Murphy is the acting chief of Gynecology & Obstetrics at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage.

"Our birth weights have really come up very nicely over the past 30 years and now are as big as the white population and in some cases larger. So that's good, we've really made some progress. It's something you can really pat yourself on the back for about five minutes until you look at the details, the devil is in the details in this case."

The devilish details are tobacco and alcohol. Murphy says more than half the state's Native women smoke, and an increasing number use alcohol during pregnancy. Murphy and a team of medical researchers compared birthweights of children born to Native women who smoked or used alcohol while pregnant to those who didn't. Those who smoked and consumed alcohol regularly had infants weighing about 400 grams, or nearly a pound, less than babies born to Native women who abstained. Murphy says a healthy newborn should weigh about 3,600 grams, or between 7 and 8 pounds.

"When we looked at people who didn't smoke and who didn't drink, it came out almost to 3,600 grams. And then we looked at the people that drink but don't smoke, and that takes us down to 3,450. Then you look at the people who smoke but don't drink, that takes us down to 3,400. And when you add both smoking and drinking, then you get your birthweight down into the 3,200 gram range. So that's a drop of about 400 grams, and it's just a step-wise progression. By smoking and adding drinking it just moves in right on down."

Murphy says the loss of one pound may not seem like much until you consider the consequences.

"It's really whether the mother is going to be a gambler or not. If it's born on time, if you take an 8-pound baby and through smoking you decrease its weight to 7 pounds, well that's not a huge problem. But if you take a baby that comes out at 4 pounds and you knock it down to 3 pounds, that can either be a life-threatening change or can put the baby into the intensive care nursery for months at a time and the baby can have chronic pulmonary and liver and other problems that can develop. It's a gamble. When someone starts smoking more than 10 cigarettes a day they are gambling with their child's ultimate outcome."

The effects of smoking and alcohol on pregnant women and their unborn babies is well documented. Still, this study is significant because it shows an alarming reversal of health care advances in Alaska.

"But what this does, by having the babies' birthweights go back, it in other words erases that 30 years of progress that happened through public health, through good nutrition, through education--all that stuff has been thrown out the window when you smoke."

Even more disturbing is that while this study looked at data collected from 1989 through 1991, studies since then have documented a continued increase in smoking and alcohol consumption among all Alaska Natives. And that, says Murphy, is a strong indication that the problem is getting worse, not better.

Reporting from Fairbanks, this is Debra Damron for Arctic Science Journeys.