Stop Smoking Way

Pregnant women who stop smoking before the 15th week have rates of preterm birth and small-for-dates babies comparable to those of non-smoking women, new research indicates.

The findings show that “these severe adverse effects of smoking may be reversible if smoking is stopped early in pregnancy,” Dr. Lesley M. E. McCowan, from the University of Adelaide, Australia, and colleagues comment in the British Medical Journal.

The results come from an analysis of data for 2500 women who were having their first baby. At 15 weeks’ gestation, the women were classified as non-smokers, stopped smokers, or current smokers.

If you smoke and you’re pregnant or planning to become pregnant, it’s especially important to kick the habit now. The toxic chemicals inhaled when you smoke are easily passed to the unborn baby.

The American Pregnancy Association offers these suggestions to help you stop smoking during pregnancy:

• Make a list of all of the health benefits of quitting for yourself and your baby.
• Replace smoking with healthier habits, such as having a snack or a cup of tea with your newspaper, instead of a cigarette.
• Surround yourself with nonsmokers.
• Have a friend or family member ready to call when you need support.

There’s never a better time for a woman to quit smoking than when she’s pregnant, doctors say, and all it may take is a little exercise. Researchers from St. George’s University in London found that even just one day of exercise a week could help pregnant women quit smoking before giving birth.

In a study of 32 pregnant women, 25 per cent kicked the habit. That figure is comparable to non-pregnant smokers who use nicotine replacement, such as patches and gums, to quit. “These results are very encouraging and we are now conducting a randomized controlled trial with 850 women,” lead study author Michael Ussher said in a statement. “Regular exercise is ideal for any pregnant women who smoke as it’s obviously safe and the benefits are enormous.”

Smoking during pregnancy appears to affect children’s birthweight, and possibly their risk of becoming overweight, but it may not directly harm other aspects of physical and cognitive development, a large study suggests.

The findings, from a study of nearly 53,000 U.S. children born in the 1960s, found that those whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were at higher risk of low birthweight — a link that studies have long noted.

There was also evidence, albeit weaker, that these children were more likely than children of non-smoking women to be overweight by age seven.

Smoking during pregnancy acts like a dual risk in respect of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) – as it not only does raise a mother’s likelihood of having a preterm baby, but it also increases the infant’s susceptibility to SIDS further, according to a new study.

The study found that smoking not only does raises a mother’s likelihood of having a preterm baby, who is already among the most vulnerable to SIDS, but also increases the infant’s susceptibility to SIDS even further.