Pregnancy, births and maternity: risk factors during pregnancy

Smoking

Smoking during pregnancy is associated with increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, prematurity, low birth weight and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Smoking can also reduce the likelihood of conception by increasing the amount of time it takes for women to conceive and reducing sperm count in men.  

Data on smoking during pregnancy in Scotland are available from: 

Women who are pregnant or planning to get pregnant can get more information from the NHS Scotland Ready Steady Baby website. 

Alcohol

The UK's four Chief Medical Officers recommend that alcohol is not consumed during pregnancy or while trying to conceive.  

  • Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can lead to a wide range of development issues and physical disabilities including Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).  
  • FASD can cause permanent problems with movement, balance, vision and hearing; learning, such as problems with thinking, concentration, and memory; managing emotions and developing social skills; hyperactivity and impulse control; communication, such as problems with speech as well as joint, muscle, bone, and organ damage.

Data on alcohol use in pregnancy are available from Births in Scotland (Scottish Health and Care Open Data).

Drugs

Data on maternal drug use in Scotland are available from:

  1. Our Drug misuse pages
  1. the maternities with drug use recorded indicator in the ScotPHO profiles tool.
  1. Births in Scotland on Scottish Health and Care Open Data.

Poverty

Living in poverty is detrimental to pregnancy outcomes, and is associated with preterm birth, intrauterine growth restriction, neonatal or infant death, and development outcomes of the child.  

Pregnancy can also push women into poverty because of loss of employment income, childcare costs, inflexible work environments (Scottish Government), welfare reforms that limit the support available to low income families (Public Health Scotland) and lack of universal maternity pay. The current rate of maternity allowance on the basic rate is below the National Living Wage (see Maternity Action).

Mothers in low-income households were less likely to report drinking alcohol during pregnancy compared to those in high-income households, however drug misuse and smoking during pregnancy is highest amongst women living in the most deprived areas of Scotland (by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintile).  

To reduce the health inequalities associated with maternity and birth outcomes, policies that act on the wider determinants of health such as income and employment are needed. Data on levels of poverty in Scotland, including during the first year of life, are available from: