MATERNAL SMOKING AND TOOTH FORMATION IN THE FETUS .3. THIN MANDIBULARINCISORS AND DELAYED MOTOR DEVELOPMENT AT 1-YEAR OF AGE

Dental casts from 2159 black and white Americans with detailed neurolo gical data available from the Collaborative Perinatal Study were exami ned to investigate the relationship of maternal smoking during pregnan cy and delayed motor development at 1 year of age to morphological tra its in the dentition. Earlier results have indicated that maternal smo king during pregnancy may cause selected tooth size metric reductions in the deciduous dentition and at least in some of the permanent teeth with prenatal crown formation, these features being influenced by sex and race differences. The present results suggest that a thinning of the incisal parts of the permanent mandibular incisors is associated w ith heavy maternal smoking during pregnancy, and those white girls, in whom this dental variant is found, have probably experienced more sev ere central damage during the smoking sensitive gestational months, as is also seen in a delayed motor development at the age of 1 year. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.