More women quit smoking during pregnancy but not before and after.

2003 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- More women are quitting smoking during pregnancy, but smoking trends before and after pregnancy are less encouraging, according to a study of more than 100,000 women.

While U.S. smoking rates have generally declined over the last decade, little is known about the specifics of smoking rates among women before, during, and after pregnancy. Most studies on this subject have been limited by small size, but not this one.

"By pooling data over time and across states, we constructed the largest population-based sample ever, with detailed information on smoking among women before, during and after pregnancy," said study author Gregory J. Colman, PhD, of the department of economics at Pace University and the National Bureau of Economic Research, both in New York City.

With study coauthor Ted Joyce, PhD, of the economics department at the City University of New York's Baruch College and the National Bureau of Economic Research, Colman analyzed data on 115,000 women, collected by the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data was collected from 1993 to 1999 in 10 U.S. states.

The number of women who reported that they had quit smoking during pregnancy rose during the study period, from 37% to 46%. But the number of quitters before and after pregnancy did not change significantly. Almost 60% of the women who had quit smoking during pregnancy resumed the habit within 6 months after delivery.

Additional study findings isolated smoking behavior by group. For example, women who were black, giving birth for the first time, privately insured and college educated were more likely to quit and least likely to resume smoking after delivery than women who were white, not giving birth for the first time, Medicaid-insured and high school-educated, respectively. ...