Pregnancy--a golden opportunity for promoting the cessation of smoking?

OBJECTIVE

To investigate whether daily-smoking pregnant women are more motivated to reduce their cigarette consumption than daily-smoking non-pregnant women.

DESIGN

Prospective study with self-administered questionnaires at inclusion and 18 months later.

SETTING

116 general practitioners in western Norway.

SUBJECTS

83 pregnant and 107 non-pregnant women.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Non-anonymous questionnaires focusing on smoking habits and attitudes to smoking cessation.

RESULTS

Pregnant women were more often encouraged to stop smoking by their partners than non-pregnant women (p < 0.01). More pregnant than non-pregnant women totally agreed that their GP should try to motivate their patients to stop smoking (p < 0.001). Pregnant women also predicted that they would be non-smokers in five years more often than non-pregnant women (p < 0.001). Eighteen months later no such difference was found. A reduced cigarette consumption, verified by serum thiocyanate, was found among women early in pregnancy. The reduced consumption found later in pregnancy and the first year after delivery may be explained to some extent by systematic underreporting. At the end of the study eight per cent of both pregnant and non-pregnant women had stopped smoking.

CONCLUSION

We need to develop strategies for utilizing the unique opportunity which pregnancy provides for the motivation of cessation of smoking.