Pregnant women 70% less likely to quit if her other half still smokes

Women are up to 70% less likely to stop smoking during their pregnancy if their partner continues to smoke, a Growing Up in Ireland report to be published later today will show.

The finding by the National Longitude Study of Children has called for campaigns to stop smoking to be targeted at the partner as well as the woman herself.

The report draws on data from 11,000 infants and their families and looks at three specific health behaviours among mothers in the prenatal and antenatal period – cigarette smoking in pregnancy, alcohol consumption in pregnancy and breastfeeding. It examines the impact of those behaviours on the child’s birth weight and subsequent growth and development from birth to nine months.