Smoking ban reduced the number of premature births - study

Theory that smoking bans reduce premature births received a new confirmation in a recent study.

The study, conducted on a total of 600,000 births, showing decreased number of births of children, occurring in less than 37 weeks - those occurring after the smoking ban, the BBC notes.

There was no such trend in the period prior introduction of the ban, says experts.

But experts could not say with certainty causal relationship between the two aspects as decreasing the number of premature births occurred before the introduction of the ban.

Only current study could make a ban exact correlation between the previous situation and the situation further, noting the effects of the ban in Belgium.

Rate of premature births decreased after each phase of introducing the ban, the greatest impact starring ban in restaurants and bars.

After the three successive bans in 2007 and 2010, preterm births declined by 3 percent each time.