Tobacco: pregnant women are not encouraged enough to stop

More than half of pregnant smokers at the time of delivery does not remember being informed about the benefits of smoking cessation during pregnancy, according to results of a study presented in the framework of the second international conference on Francophone Tobacco Control (CIFCOT) in Paris.

Tobacco and pregnancy: incompatible

Dr. Gilles Grange, obstetrician gynecologist Maternity Port Royal and addiction specialist, and a team of Allied Association interviewed 979 women where the next two days after giving birth in May and June 2002. The results are published in the European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Among the women surveyed, 31% smoked in early pregnancy and 18% on the day of delivery.

But smoking has implications for the development of the child, as evidenced by another study by health insurance with 8863 women from 33 maternity hospitals in Ile de France and the results were also presented at CIFCOT. The birth weight of infants born to smoking mothers is less than 250 grams in the children of mothers who did not smoke or more, according to survey results.

Among women who smoke the day of delivery, 21% reported never having had questions about tobacco and only 7% said they were directed to a specialist consultation on the subject, according to Dr. Grange and colleagues.

The smoking cessation, a material sufficiently taught?

For Gilles Grange, this lack of information to pregnant women may be explained in part by teaching smoking cessation "insufficient" in the second cycle of medical studies.

"There are still gynecologists say that women in labor that smoking less than five cigarettes per day, if it can not be too stressed, it is an acceptable risk," responded Dr. Marion Adler, Hospital Antoine Béclère Clamart.

"The problem, added Prof. Michel Delcroix, president of the Association perinatal research information lies in the fact that few obstetricians come in the type of conferences CIFCOT! A question that it is also smoking ... caregivers. Midwives who smoke during work time is unacceptable. "

A consensus conference on the theme of pregnancy and tobacco held in Lille, under the aegis of Anaes *, reminded stakeholders.

In addition, the campaign against smoking for pregnant women was included in the cancer map. In addition, Medicare sends to all pregnant women a plate awareness on the theme: "I'm pregnant, I smoke, this is a unique opportunity to stop me."