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Tobacco Quit Line Expands Services for Pregnant Women Who Smoke 

Quitting smoking is one of the best things a woman can do to protect her own health and the health of her baby. In time for Mother's Day on May 11, the state Department of Health has added new services to its free Tobacco Quit Line to provide pregnant women with more help when they're ready to quit using tobacco.

The new tools include quit materials and extra follow-up calls specifically to help pregnant women increase their chances of quitting and remaining tobacco-free after the baby is born. Quit coaches have received additional training to better understand the challenges pregnant women face when trying to quit smoking. In Washington, more than 8,700 babies are born each year to women who smoke during their pregnancy.

"Quitting smoking is a Mother's Day gift that a pregnant woman can give to herself and her baby," said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. "Babies with moms who smoke are more likely to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and have health problems like ear infections and pneumonia. These new resources will make a real difference in the health of pregnant women and their babies."

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Study Shows Perils Of Smoking And Pregnancy 

New research to be published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology has found significant association between smoking during pregnancy, endothelial dysfunction and growth restriction in the unborn baby. Endothelial dysfunction can lead to reduced dilation of blood vessels, inflammation of the vascular wall and an increase in the incidence of blood clots.

The University of Sydney study included 41 pregnant women, 21 of whom smoked ten or more cigarettes a day and 20 who were non-smokers.

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Correlates of Smoking Before, During, and After Pregnancy (PDF) 

Results: Although socio-demographic characteristics including education, income, race/ethnicity, and marital status were associated with smoking at all time points, contextual factors including alcohol consumption, breast-feeding, and living with other smokers were also strongly associated with smoking, quitting, and relapsing.

Conclusions: Results of this study may facilitate the creation of more targeted interventions focusing on women at highest risk for smoking during this critical period.

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• Study shows how smoking results in smaller babies 

Scientists have discovered how smoking during pregnancy can result in babies of low birth weight, according to a new study.

Previous research has linked smoking with negative effects on the unborn child, including low birth weight and premature birth.

Now researchers at the University of Sydney say there is a significant association between smoking during pregnancy, an effect on blood vessels and growth restriction in the unborn baby.

The effect on blood vessels is described as endothelial dysfunction; a state that can lead to reduced dilation of blood vessels, inflammation of the vascular (blood vessel) wall and an increase in the incidence of blood clots. . . .

The results, published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, revealed that the women who smoked during pregnancy had persistent endothelial dysfunction, which remained at a constant level whether one or two cigarettes had just been smoked or following a nine-hour break from smoking.

Strong links were also found between endothelial dysfunction and intrauterine growth restriction, which carries an increased risk of babies dying around the time of birth.

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Peterborough Health Unit Gets Funding To Help Residents Butt Out, Canada 

Dean Del Mastro, Member of Parliament for Peterborough, announced an investment of $263,933 in the Peterborough County-City Health Unit's smoking cessation project on behalf of Health Minister Tony Clement. The funding will allow the health unit to establish comprehensive smoking cessation programs for smokers in the area.

"I'm pleased that Peterborough residents will benefit from this community-based cessation initiative," said Minister Clement. "We know that many adults in the area want to quit smoking - these new programs will help them do that."

This health unit project will focus on high-risk groups including: pregnant women; patients with chronic diseases; and aboriginal populations at Curve Lake and Hiawatha First Nation.

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• Prenatal exposure to smoking may affect menopause 

Women who were exposed to cigarette smoke prenatally may go through menopause earlier than other women, a study has found.

Researchers found that among more than 4,000 U.S. women followed since the 1970s, those whose mothers had smoked during pregnancy were 21 percent more likely to have gone through menopause at any given age.

The findings suggest that maternal smoking during pregnancy may have a role in "programming" female children's eventual age at menopause, the researchers report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

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Billie Piper trying to quit smoking before getting pregnant  

Billie Piper is reportedly trying to give up smoking before trying to start a family with husband Laurence Fox.

The couple, who married on New Year's Eve, are said to want to start their family as soon as possible - but former Doctor Who star Billie is determined to cut out her cigarette habit first rather than waiting until she's already pregnant.

A source close to the couple said recently: "As you'd expect, they want everything to be perfect for her first pregnancy but she's smoked for so long that she's finding it hard going."

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• Smoking while pregnant: Maternal struggle 

Twenty-year-old Kendra Bay started smoking when she was 16.

While she said "everyone does it" isn't an excuse for smoking, it was her reason for starting. But that's not about to keep her from quitting. Every day her reason to stop smoking grows a little bigger.

Bay is 33 weeks pregnant. She's due to give birth to her daughter, whom she is naming Emilye, on June 2. Bay has quit smoking for several weeks at a time in the past, but ultimately she keeps turning back to her habit. But this time, with the birth of her daughter, Bay said she has all the motivation she needs. By then, the stress of planning her May 4 wedding will also be over.

"Before I got pregnant I would criticize people for still smoking when they were pregnant, but when it's you, it's harder," Bay said. "... It's the thing you need to do, but it's at one of the most stressful times in your life."

Bay isn't alone. In Douglas County 24 percent of women smoke during their pregnancy, according to a birth certificate statistics report.

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CUTTING SMOKING RATES IN PREGNANCY 

The Minister for Health and Human Services, Lara Giddings, today launched a hospital based initiative designed to help tackle high rates of smoking among pregnant women in Tasmania.

The Smoke Free Pregnancy Project will provide training to midwives at the Royal Hobart and Launceston General Hospitals on smoking cessation for pregnant smokers during routine antenatal consultations.

Pregnant women will also be offered information about the dangers of smoking as well as referral to the Quitline for ongoing counselling and support.

"Alarmingly, close to 30% of pregnant women in Tasmania smoke during their pregnancy," Ms Giddings said.

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Pregnancy Smoking May Hurt Baby's Heart 

Women who smoke in the month before getting pregnant or during the first trimester of pregnancy may be more likely to have babies with congenital heart defects.

That news appears in the April edition of Pediatrics.

Congenital heart defects are the most common type of structural birth defects, affecting eight to 10 of every 1,000 babies born in the U.S., according to the researchers, who included Sadia Malik, MD, MPH, of the University of Arkansas.

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Your baby's brain on drugs (and alcohol and tobacco) 

The brain image at left is from a subject exposed to alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine and marijuana in utero, while the image at right is from a same-age, same-sex control with... Click here for more information.

Although behavioral studies clearly indicate that exposure to drugs, alcohol and tobacco in utero is bad for a baby's developing brain, specific anatomic brain effects have been hard to tease out in humans. Often users don't limit themselves to one substance, and demographic factors like poverty can also influence brain development.

Now, an NIH-funded study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans, led by Children's Hospital Boston neurologist Michael Rivkin, MD, suggests that prenatal exposure to cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or tobacco (alone or in combination) may have effects on brain structure that persist into early adolescence. The findings, published in the April issue of Pediatrics, are of public health significance, the researchers say, since it's estimated that more than 1 million babies born annually in the United States have been exposed to at least one of these agents in utero.

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• Nearly one-third smoke while pregnant  

SMOKING rates among pregnant Tasmanian women are twice the national average and pushing the state's embattled health system further into crisis, authorities warn.

New State Government figures reveal a shocking 27.6 per cent of Tasmania's pregnant women smoke - most of them are young and economically disadvantaged.

Describing the problem as a health disaster for the state, public health director Roscoe Taylor said there were large gaps in smoking rates between the rich and the poor.

While 8.3 per cent of private pregnant patients smoked, the rate for public patients was 35.7 per cent.

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Smoking Early In Pregnancy Raises Risks Of Heart Defects In Newborns  

The study, published in the April issue of Pediatrics, shows that women who smoked anytime during the month before pregnancy to the end of the first trimester were more likely to give birth to infants with certain congenital heart defects (CHDs) compared to women who did not smoke during this time period. The association was stronger for mothers who reported heavier smoking during this time period.

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• Infant heart defects tied to maternal smoking 

A woman who smokes during pregnancy increases the risk that her child will be born with a heart defect, a new study published in Pediatrics shows.

To clarify the relationship between prenatal smoke exposure and congenital heart defects, Dr. Sadia Malik of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock and her colleagues evaluated 3,067 infants born with heart defects, unrelated to genetic syndromes, who were included in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study. . . .

The more a woman smoked, the greater was the likelihood that she would have an infant with a defect. Women who smoked 25 or more cigarettes daily during pregnancy were more likely to have infants with obstructions on the right side of the heart. . . .

Malik's group found no relationship between second-hand smoke exposure and congenital heart defects. . . .

"If even a fraction of congenital heart defects and other birth defects could be prevented by decreasing maternal tobacco use, it would result in improved reproductive outcomes and a saving of millions of health care dollars," they conclude.

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Smoking in Early Pregnancy Raises Baby's Risk of Heart Defects 

Smoking early in pregnancy increases the risk of having babies with heart defects, according to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Women who smoked anytime during the month before pregnancy to the first three months are more likely to give birth to infants with congenital heart defects than those who didn't smoke, the CDC said in a statement. The study is published in the April issue of Pediatrics. Heavier smoking was associated with higher risk.

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