ASH Daily News for 29 August 2008

Postpartum smoking relapse may be prevented by newly defined factors

Although many women quit smoking during pregnancy to protect their unborn children from the effects of cigarettes, half of them relapse and start smoking within a few months of giving birth. 

According to a new US study, women with a live-in partner who shared some of the burden of child rearing were more likely to remain smokefree, while women who were single mothers or who lacked the social and financial resources to deal with being a new parent were more likely to relapse.

"In the future we can look at these and other factors in women who quit smoking during pregnancy to assess who is at low or high risk of relapse," said Carol E. Ripley-Moffitt, MDiv, research associate in UNC's department of family medicine and the study's lead author.

Ripley-Moffitt noted that the past 15 years have seen a steady decrease in the number of women who smoke while pregnant, in part because of an overall decline in smoking rates among all women of childbearing age and in part because of interventions targeting women during the prenatal period.

The UNC study, which appears in the August issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, is the first to examine not only the factors leading to relapse but also those leading to a smokefree life after pregnancy. The researchers interviewed pregnant women attending prenatal clinics in central North Carolina who had quit smoking before 30 weeks gestation.

Researchers asked all women about their decision to quit during pregnancy, how they quit, and what they would do in the future.

Women who relapsed postpartum were undermined by easy access to cigarettes, reliance on cigarettes to deal with stress, lack of financial resources, lack of resources for childrearing and low self-esteem.

The findings also suggest that any new programs aimed at improving quit rates must be comprehensive in nature - they must give women the tools to acquire new skills, deal with addiction and improve life circumstances, socially and financially.

"Many of the women who relapsed were already trying to quit again when we interviewed them," Ripley-Moffitt said. "While there is no simple solution, we recommend directly addressing the social and financial stresses that lead to relapse. We hope that our study will encourage creative interventions to help mothers sustain a smokefree lifestyle after pregnancy, improving overall health for women and their families." 

Source: Medical News Today, 28 August 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/5688wj

Thousands helped to quit smoking

More than 2,200 people across Cumbria managed to give up smoking with help from the NHS last year. 

More than 3,500 smokers set quit dates and 2,270 managed to give up for good with the help of Nicotine Replacement Therapy and one-to-one support.

This is around two thirds of those who wanted to quit - higher than the national average of 53%.

Research shows that smokers are four times more likely to stop smoking if they use their local NHS service.

Cathy Wynne, associate director of public health at the county's primary care trust, said: "It is really encouraging that so many people in Cumbria have gone smokefree."

"These figures show that last year, more than 2,200 smokers in Cumbria quit with the free help and advice provided by the NHS."

Source: BBC News, 27 August 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6yajjn

New NHS worker to help mums-to-be stop smoking

Pregnant smokers in Basildon and Thurrock are to get extra help to quit smoking.

Smoking rates in the area are higher than the national average and South West Essex Primary Care Trust is so concerned it plans recruit a full-time stop smoking in pregnancy facilitator.

The Government has ordered the trust to reduce overall smoking rates and those among mums-to-be.

The neighbouring South East Essex Primary Care Trust, covering Southend, Castle Point and Rochford, has been using a similar worker for more than a year.

Facilitators run group sessions, carry out home visits and give one-to-one advice to mums-to-be.

Smoking while pregnant increases the likelihood a baby will be be born prematurely, will weigh less, have less well-developed organs and be twice as likely to be a victim of cot death.

Overall, smoking is estimated to cost the South West Essex trust £10million a year, so the trust feels that the new post will represent good value for money.

Basildon and Thurrock has the highest percentage of smokers in Essex – 29 per cent of people in Basildon and 28 per cent in Thurrock smoke. The national average is 24.1 per cent.

Jenny Wheeler, stop smoking manager for neighbouring South East Essex Primary Care Trust, said: “I think the important thing is the people who need help and support in Basildon and Thurrock will soon be able to get it.”

The number of pregnant women smoking in the South-West Essex trust area has already fallen by 12.5 per cent over the past two years, but the trust has been told it must cut the figure by a further 15 per cent by 2010.

As part of its strategy to achieve this, the trust say it aims to get 3,500 local people off cigarettes by next March – at least two per cent of them pregnant women.

Source: Echo, 29 August 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6r97ef

Pakistan: Tobacco consumption deepens poverty in the third world

Tobacco use deepens poverty in the third world as money which is needed for basic necessities such as food, shelter and education is used on tobacco products, said senior pulmonologist, Dr. Javaid A Khan. 

Dr Javaid A Khan, The head of Pulmonology Department, Aga Khan University, warned that tobacco consumption is killing wage earners in the prime of their lives.

He said the tobacco epidemic is shifting to the developing world not due to population growth but because of aggressive marketing tactics of the tobacco industry.

He warned, “The global tobacco epidemic not only affects the health of millions of people in Pakistan but it is also an economic threat that costs local and national economies billions of dollars each year."

He said the situation is largely controllable and referred to MPOWER, comprising six cost effective solutions, identified by WHO as:

Monitor tobacco use and assess the impact of tobacco prevention and cessation efforts;

Protect everyone from secondhand smoke with laws that require smokefree work-places and public places;

Offer help to every tobacco user to quit;

Warn and effectively educate every person about the dangers of tobacco use with strong, pictorial health warnings and hard-hitting, sustained media campaigns to educate the public;

Enact and enforce comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorships and on the use of misleading terms such as “light” and “low-tar” and raise the price of tobacco products by increasing tobacco taxes.

Khan added, “These are scientifically proven policies that can reverse the tobacco epidemic around the globe."

Dr. Javaid A Khan said there was a delay in the implementation of the Prohibition of Tobacco Use and Smoking Ordinance 2002.

He referred to estimates that 100,000 people might be losing their lives, in Pakistan due to tobacco and cigarette related ailments or passive smoking.

We must get it strictly implemented to protect health and lives of people including non smokers.

He highlighted  recent research by the Coalition for Tobacco Control-Pakistan which shows that very few public offices were implementing the smokefree policy.  

Source: Associated Press of Pakistan, 29 August 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6ytjpu