Many women are not giving up smoking when they become pregnant despite concerted health campaigns and a general decline in the number of women smokers across the country, researchers have shown. They say that it is more effective to prevent people from starting smoking than to try to help them give up. The researchers surveyed nearly 2,00,000 women of childbearing age between 1987 and 1996. They found that there was a significant drop in the number of women smokers over the 10-year period.

But what worries the researchers is that from their analysis, the drop was due to fewer women starting smoking and not women giving up when they were expecting a baby. In fact the number of young women smoking during pregnancy is on the increase.

Need to dissuade young people from smoking

Pregnancy is often seen as one of the most effective times to give up cigarettes. There is ample evidence of the damage smoking can do to the foetus - it can interfere with normal growth, increase the risks of miscarriage, and bring on premature birth.


So the fact that women often do not give up when they become pregnant underlines the addictive nature of cigarettes. What is needed, they say, is a broad-based approach to dissuade young people from starting smoking in the first place. This includes taxing tobacco, introducing anti-smoking policies and restricting tobacco advertising. And, they say, if women just cannot give up smoking during pregnancy, they should at least try to cut down. Bureau Report