Research articleSpontaneous cessation of smoking and alcohol use among low-income pregnant women
Section snippets
Background
Deleterious effects of cigarette and alcohol use on the fetus during pregnancy are unequivocal. Smoking increases the rate of low birth weight and premature birth,1, 2 fetal and infant mortality,3 sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, upper respiratory infections, and hospitalization for pneumonia or bronchitis.4, 5, 6, 7 Alcohol use during pregnancy is a major cause of preventable mental retardation8, 9 and intrauterine growth retardation.4, 10, 11 The co-occurrence of cigarette and alcohol
Subjects and data collection
Study participants were enrolled in a randomized clinical trial, Quit Together (QT), studying the effect of a smoking intervention delivered by their usual prenatal healthcare providers. Baseline data were collected from May 1997 to December 1999 at five WIC offices in CHCs in the greater Boston, Massachusetts, area that offer prenatal and pediatric services to clients of diverse race/ethnicity. The majority of participants were enrolled prior to their first prenatal WIC appointment. Eligible
Results
As reported in Table 1, the study sample is ethnically and racially diverse. Most were unmarried or not living with a partner, not working, born in the United States, had Medicaid coverage, had a partner (or husband) who smoked, and experiencing a first pregnancy. Forty-one percent had less than a high school education.
Spontaneous quitting of smoking at pregnancy was reported by 27.6% (n=166) of the 601 women. Ninety-one percent of the cotinine values below the cut-point indicated correct
Discussion
The greater reported rate of spontaneous alcohol abstinence (80%) compared to smoking (27.6%) in this study is consistent with previous work.4, 23, 24, 38 The spontaneous smoking-cessation rate in our study is close to the national average (overall and by race/ethnicity). Several factors from four broad categories of variables (personal characteristics, substance use and tobacco addiction, attitudes/perceptions, and environmental context) were independently related to spontaneous cessation of
Acknowledgements
This project was supported by grant R01-HL51319-03 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NHLBI. We are grateful to the Massachusetts WIC office under the leadership of Jan Kallio for its support, as well as the research assistants (Evangelina Alvarez, Jessica Amador, Estenia Parsons, Janet Raphaelson, and Nancy Smith) who collected the data. We are also
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