http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/category/pregnancy.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.politics.co.uk/news/health/-tax-cigarettes-more-to-fund-quitting-programmes--$1365893.htm http://tobacco.org/news/298672.html Tax on cigarettes should be increased to fund health measures designed to help smokers quit, a thinktank has suggested. Police Exchange suggested offering pregnant smokers a weekly £10 reward for quitting. The paper claimed the cost to the public of smokers outweighed the revenue from duty on cigarettes. It called for a five per cent hike in next week's Budget, a rise of 23p for a pack in 20. It demanded more increases over the next five years until the habit became "revenue neutral". Politics.co.uk Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Cigarettes-Give-Pregnant-Smokers-A-10-A-Week-Reward-Urges-Think-Tank-Policy-Exchange/Article/201003315575627?lpos=UK_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15575627_Cigarettes%3A_Give_Pregnant_Smokers_A_%3F10-A-Week_Reward%2C_Urges_Think_Tank_Policy_Exchange_ http://tobacco.org/news/298669.html Pregnant women who give up smoking should be given a £10-a-week "reward", according to a political think tank. Pregnant teenagers are a hard group to convince to stop smoking The money to pay for the scheme should be raised from a massive increase in cigarettes tax, the report from the Policy Exchange said. The cost to the public of smoking far outweighed the revenue from duty, it claimed, arguing that left the taxpayer with a 6.5p bill for every cigarette smoked. And the think tank, in its Cough Up report, called for a 5% hike in next week's budget - a rise of 23p for a pack of 20 - and further rises over the next five years to ensure smoking became "revenue neutral". While tax on tobacco raised £10bn a year for the Treasury, the annual cost of healthcare and other consequences of smoking totalled £13.74bn, its research found. "It is a popular myth that smoking is a net contributor to the economy - our research finds that every single cigarette smoked costs the country 6.5p," report author Henry Featherstone said. Sky News UK Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.inderscience.com/offer.php?id=32035 http://tobacco.org/news/298600.html Passive cigarette smoking and obesity during pregnancy are risk factors for adverse outcome in infant. Elevated umbilical cord neonatal nucleated red blood cells (NRBCs) have been suggested as a marker of intrauterine foetal hypoxia. . . . In conclusion, the neonates of obese mothers and passive maternal smoking have increased NRBCs at birth. Inderscience Publishers Ltd. subs@inderscience.com (Abeer M. Nour ElDin Abd ElBaky, Tarek Mohamad Farid El Shaer, Amany Ezat Elwan, Hanaa Rasmy) Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/03/16/one-in-five-women-in-wales-smoke-while-pregnant-91466-26039044/ http://tobacco.org/news/298557.html WALES has the highest rates of women who smoke during their pregnancy in the UK, shocking figures reveal today. Despite the social taboo, the figures from anti-smoking charity ASH Wales show one-in-five women continue to smoke throughout pregnancy. Midwives said many young women are smoking while pregnant because they believe they will have smaller "doll-like" babies. Helen Rogers, the Royal College of Midwives' board secretary for Wales, said: "Years ago women thought if they continued to smoke they wouldn't put on as much weight and they would have smaller babies that are easier to deliver. "I thought that thinking had been educated out of existence but it hasn't - there are a lot of teenagers who, to be in with the in- crowd, are smoking. "They are getting pregnant and continuing to smoke because their peers are smoking. "It's about keeping pretty, keeping slim and having tiny, doll-like babies. No matter how much midwives say smoking is bad, it's very hard to get that message through." WalesOnline UK-Wales Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/ip-oap031610.php http://tobacco.org/news/298546.html Babies born to mothers with obesity and exposed to passive smoking are more likely to have health problems than others. This conclusion is based on evidence of elevated levels of nucleated red blood cells in the umbilical cord reported in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health. Pediatrician Abd ElBaky of the National Research Centre, in Cairo, and colleagues there and at Cairo University, Egypt, have found that obesity and passive smoking are risk factors for elevated umbilical cord neonatal immature, or nucleated red blood cells (NRBCs). Raised levels of NRBCs are indicative of a degraded oxygen supply to the baby during the pregnancy. . . . Tobacco smoke inhalation whether direct or indirect may affect the amount of oxygen reaching the unborn child, because hemoglobin is poorly oxygenated. Nicotine can also cause narrowing of blood vessels, vasoconstriction, and so reduce oxygen supply through that mechanism too. EurekAlert abeernour66@yahoo.com Egypt Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AAAAI/18747?utm_content=GroupCL&utm_medium=email&impressionId=1267521377042&utm_campaign=DailyHeadlines&utm_source=mSpoke&userid=220600 http://tobacco.org/news/297896.html Action Points Explain to interested patients that the triggers for asthma are not well understood but the disease is now believed to result from a combination of genetic susceptibility and environmental factors, which are now being sorted out. Explain that this study, suggests that a pregnant woman's smoking can affect a child's risk of developing athsma. So cessation is especially recommended during pregnancy and after delivery to avoid exposing fetuses and infants to tobacco metabolites and secondhand smoke. Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. NEW ORLEANS -- Maternal smoking during pregnancy may exert a more powerful influence on asthma development in children than postnatal secondhand smoke or breastfeeding by smoking moms, researchers said here. Children of different ethnicities with exposure in utero to tobacco smoking were at nearly six times as likely to develop persistent asthma than children whose moms didn't smoke during pregnancy, according to Sarena Apte, MD, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. . . . Source reference: Apte S, et al "Childhood persistent asthma after in utero tobacco exposure in Mexican, Puerto Rican, and African Americans" J Allergy Clin Immunol 2010; 125: AB57. MedPage Today Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WCV-4W73H7F-3&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=66b0d289d5244616b0df0e8b9bcb5bb6 http://tobacco.org/news/297591.html Results Patients with schizophrenia smoked more often compared with controls (73% vs 57%). In contrast, the prevalence of smoking during pregnancy did not differ between the groups of mothers. Indeed, the amount of tobacco used was significantly lower in mothers of patients with schizophrenia vs mothers of nonpsychotic subjects. Conclusion This study did not show any association between prenatal tobacco exposure and further development of schizophrenia. Science Direct florence.thibaut@chu-rouen.fr France Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://respiratory-research.com/content/11/1/11 http://tobacco.org/news/297587.html In summary, our results showed that prenatal and current household ETS exposure in Taiwan had significant adverse effects on respiratory health in children. Eliminating household ETS exposure may offer the most promising opportunity for reducing morbidity, because this risk factor is potentially modifiable. Public health policy for reducing the burden of respiratory symptoms may require a stronger focus on smoking cessation in the home, where children could gain significant health benefits. Respiratory Research Taiwan Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://respiratory-research.com/content/pdf/1465-9921-11-11.pdf http://tobacco.org/news/297585.html Our population-based epidemiologic study showed the harmful effects of fetal and current exposure to tobacco smoke products. Prenatal exposure due to maternal smoking had the strongest effects on respiratory symptoms. Current household ETS exposure also showed significant adverse effects, but past-only ETS exposure was not associated with any respiratory outcome. In addition, the number of current household cigarettes smoked, the percentage of ETS exposure during lifetime, and the number of current smokers at home showed increasing trends in risks of respiratory symptoms. Respiratory Research Taiwan Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://www.medwire-news.md/47/86552/Psychiatry/Prenatal_tobacco_exposure_not_linked_to_later_schizophrenia.html http://tobacco.org/news/297573.html Prenatal tobacco exposure does not increase the risk for schizophrenia in children, French scientists have discovered. Smoking during pregnancy has been associated with cognitive and behavioral disorders in their children. Although the underlying mechanisms are unclear, it has been suggested that alterations in the development of the dopamine systems may be involved. . . . Those with schizophrenia were significantly more likely to be smokers than controls, at 73% versus 57%, although there were no significant differences in the age of onset of smoking and the daily amount of tobacco smoked. Patients were also significantly more likely to use cannabis, at 40.4% versus 27.0%. . . . “Our retrospective observational study did not show any association between prenatal tobacco exposure and further development of schizophrenia,” the researchers say in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry. MedWire News France Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/303/6/527 http://tobacco.org/news/296969.html Conclusions Maternal physical characteristics and lifestyle habits were independently associated with early fetal growth. First-trimester fetal growth restriction was associated with an increased risk of adverse birth outcomes and growth acceleration in early childhood. Journal of the American Medical Association Netherlands Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/passive-smoking-also-bad-for-baby-study-20100213-nxqf.html http://tobacco.org/news/296827.html Inhaling other people's tobacco smoke can have a serious impact on a developing baby, scientists have confirmed, sounding a new alarm for mums-to-be. Passive smoking during pregnancy carries many of the risks associated with active smoking, a major review of the scientific literature has found. The Canadian study found women exposed to environmental tobacco smoke had "increased risks of (having) infants with lower birth weight, congenital anomalies, longer lengths, and trends towards smaller head circumferences". Lobby group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Australia said it was further evidence of the impact of passive smoking, and of the need to continue to roll out legislated smoke-free spaces for people who don't have the bad habit. "This new study shows babies are not just at risk if their mother smokes, but also if she's exposed to the smoke of others at work, home or public places," ASH chief executive Anne Jones said in a statement on Friday. AAP Canada Australia Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=635852 http://tobacco.org/news/296720.html The lifestyle habits you bring into pregnancy can have lasting effects on your baby's health, new research shows. A Dutch study found that women who smoked, had high blood pressure or low folic acid levels in early pregnancy had babies that were smaller in the first trimester of pregnancy and had a higher risk of complications later. "Our study demonstrates that several maternal physical characteristics and lifestyle habits, such as smoking and non-use of folic acid supplements, affect first-trimester fetal growth," said study senior author Dr. Vincent Jaddoe, a pediatric epidemiologist at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "First-trimester growth restriction is associated with higher risks of adverse birth outcomes and accelerated postnatal growth rates. Thus, the first trimester of pregnancy seems to be a very critical period for fetal growth and development. This is important, since it suggests that the fetus is already affected before pregnant women visit their midwife or obstetrician," he said. For the study, published in the Feb. 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers followed 1,631 pregnant women HealthDay [HealthScout] Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/29145/ http://tobacco.org/news/296522.html I grew up among smokers. . . .. Uh-oh. No way was I going to set my baby up for failure before she was even born. So on Sept. 14, 1984, at 10:15 a.m., I smoked my last cigarette. I know that because I still have the page from my calendar. . . . Let me reiterate: One way or another, we all pay to play. I spent 20 years as a nonsmoker, thinking I'd dodged the COPD bullet and then it happened. I was suddenly hit with asthma. . . . . . . Last week, a woman brought some items to trade in my resale clothing store. As soon as I smelled the smoke, I closed the bag and told her as politely as I could that I couldn't buy her things because they were a "little smoky." She went ballistic, insisting that her clothes didn't smell and how dare I, yada, yada, yada. I wasn't listening. I was too busy digging in my pocket for an inhaler. It saddens me to see young people puffing away. It infuriates me to see adults driving down the road, cigarettes hanging out of their mouths as two or three kids hop around in the back seat. And, most of all, it breaks my heart to see a pregnant woman open up her purse to reveal a pack of cigarettes next to her wallet. Some things in life just can't be justified. Smoking during pregnancy is at the top of the list. It's a nasty game to play and it's unconscionable to make an unborn baby pay. Gainesville Times next2new@aol.com (Teressa Glazer) Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/aussie-experts-confirm-sids-breakthrough-20100204-ndrf.html http://tobacco.org/news/296398.html An Australian-led study has confirmed a lack of serotonin was a common factor with babies who die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The breakthrough offers a "much clearer direction" in the search for a cure for the mysterious syndrome, which still claims one in 2,000 apparently healthy children. Researcher Dr Jhodie Duncan, of the Melbourne-based Florey Neuroscience Institutes, studied cases of infant deaths from confirmed SIDS and other causes. The SIDS babies were found to have lower levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter which regulates the body's basic life-sustaining functions. "Things like heart rate, blood pressure, sleep cycles, respiration, serotonin plays a very important role in all these things that you need to stay alive," Dr Duncan told AAP. . . . The research also provides a new insight into another of SIDS known risk factors - women who smoke during pregnancy or smoking in a home with a newborn. Exposure to nicotine was also known to affect serotonin levels in the body, Dr Duncan said. AAP Australia Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT