Doctors urge help for women seeking to stub out habit
Perinatal mortality refers to the death of a baby in the weeks before or after birth.
While the authors of the Perinatal Mortality in Ireland Annual Report 2011 did not directly blame smoking for causing any of the 491 infant deaths that year, they said getting the women to quit was “one of the most effective health interventions for improving perinatal outcomes”. The authors said “smo-king cessation requires priority” during pregnancy.
Data collected as part of the audit by the National Perinatal Epidemiology Centre, based at UCC, showed that of 397 women whose smoking status was recorded when making their first hospital appointment, 70 were smokers at the time. Eight subsequently quit but the remainder smoked throughout their pregnancy.
The report’s authors recommended healthcare providers increase efforts to assess and record the smoking status of all pregnant women in Ireland, both at the antenatal booking visit and during the third trimester, “given its importance as a risk factor for adverse perinatal outcomes”.
They said from this perspective, it was unfortunate that the prevalence of smoking during pregnancy was “not known”. Their report showed the prevalence of smoking among pregnant women was 16%. Rates of 12%, 15%, 16%, and 19% have been reported for England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.
Body mass index (BMI) was also examined as part of the audit. Of 305 women, the BMI of fewer than half (140) was in the healthy range. Just over a quarter (83) were overweight and 25% were obese. However the report found BMI did not appear to have a significant bearing on the rate of perinatal loss.
Of the 456 women included in this audit, almost half had pre-existing medical problems, while 5.7% had a psychiatric disorder.
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