Smoking in pregnancy

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A recent report has suggested that there may be behavioural changes in the children of mothers who smoke in pregnancy. Whilst it is known that he majority of smokers are also younger and poorer this increases the research that suggests that smoking is not a good idea for the fetus. At a time when most mothers are rightfully concerned about the possibility of prescription drug side effects in pregnancy mothers that continue to smoke  exposing the fetus to over a thousand different chemicals.

Doctors may not always get a chance to give one on one advice to their smoking pregnant patient. A recent study in the British Medical Journal looked at Scottish women in pregnancy and found ( by measuring the nicotine urinary metabolite cotinine) that about a quarter of pregnant smokers do not report their smoking when first seeing their obstetrician. Of course this may be because they do not consider themselves a smoker

This is a pity as we know that stopping smoking in early pregnancy can improve the babies health and that help for the mother to stop smoking is (somewhat) effective at getting them to stop smoking. As stated above in most countries it is the poorer and younger women of whom up to 40% are smokers, whereas it may be 15% in older and more affluent groups. It appears from this Scottish study that the more affluent woman smoker was less likely to admit that they smoked.

Tagged as: Health, Pregnancy, Tobacco, Tobacco smoking