Smoking

Indicator Definition 
The percentage of women who report abstinence from cigarette smoking during the last three months of pregnancy.

Women who abstained from cigarette smoking during last three months of pregnancy in Colorado5

Women who abstained from cigarette smoking during last three months of pregnancy by race in Colorado6

Indicator Significance 
Smoking during pregnancy is the single most preventable cause of prenatal and birth-related complications affecting both mothers and newborns. Pregnancy complications often result from prenatal exposure to cigarette smoke, which contains more than 4,000 chemicals, many of them toxic. Smoking cigarettes during pregnancy doubles the risk of low birth weight and retarded fetal development. But research shows that if a mother quits smoking during the first trimester of pregnancy, the risk decreases significantly. Secondhand smoke also contributes to health problems for both mothers and their unborn fetuses. More than 18 percent of U.S. women smoke and an estimated half of these women continue to smoke during pregnancy. If these women would stop smoking during pregnancy, the number of stillbirths would drop by an estimated 11 percent, and newborn deaths would be cut by an estimated 5 percent, statistics compiled by the U.S. Public Health Service suggest.¹

Colorado Specifics
The percentage of women who abstain from smoking during pregnancy has changed very little in Colorado in the past seven years, hovering around 90 percent. This places Colorado fifth among the 19 states that report data. A higher percentage of Hispanic women (95.6 percent) report abstaining from smoking during the last three months of pregnancy) than white women (86.8 percent) and black women (89.3 percent). Analysis of 2003 data by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also found a relationship between smoking during pregnancy and a mother’s education: Among mothers with more than 12 years of education, 97 percent abstained from smoking during pregnancy, versus 82 percent among less-educated mothers. The infant mortality rate for mothers who smoke during pregnancy is 10.7 compared to 5.9 for those who do not smoke.²

Promising Initiatives
In Colorado
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment sponsors several programs that target pregnant women who are at-risk for delivering a low birth weight baby. The Prenatal Plus Program, funded through Medicaid, counsels pregnant women on strategies for quitting smoking. Sixty-four percent of the pregnant women who enter the program quit smoking, which has contributed to reducing the incidence of low birth weight from 16 to 11 percent.³ 

Elsewhere
Tobacco Intervention and Prevention Strategy (TIPS) targets young women and pregnant mothers in South Carolina. By bringing a program of stress management techniques, education and behavior modification to the schools, workplaces and doctors’ offices—the places where the women are—TIPS is able to overcome the transportation barriers many low-income women face. The result: women are empowered to resist tobacco, and attain better health for themselves and their infants.⁴ 

Women who abstained from cigarette smoking during last three months of pregnancy⁷

Text

1. March of Dimes. Quick Reference: Fact Sheets. “Smoking During Pregnancy.”
2. March of Dimes. Quick Reference: Fact Sheets. “Smoking During Pregnancy.”
   
   Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “Colorado PRAMS 2003 Surveillance Report”; 2003.
   
   Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “Colorado Health Watch 2006”; 2006.
   
   
3. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “Prenatal Plus Program 2006 Annual Report”; November 2007.
4. Southwest Rural Health Research Center. “Rural Healthy People 2010”; 2003.

Charts

5. Source: Colorado Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, 2000 – 2006, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
   
6. Source: Colorado Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, 2006, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
   
7. Source: Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, 2000 - 2003, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.