Why Quit - Pregnancy
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Smoking and Reproductive Outcomes

• Women smokers, are at increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary disease, but women smokers also experience unique risks related to menstrual and reproductive function.
  
• Women who smoke may have trouble becoming pregnant.

• Women who smoke may have a modest increase in risks for ectopic pregnancy and spontaneous abortion.
   
• Smoking during pregnancy is associated with increased risk for miscarriage, and abnormal location of the placenta, which can cause massive hemorrhaging during delivery; smoking is also associated with a modest increase in risk for premature delivery.
   
• Infants born to women who smoke during pregnancy have a lower average birth weight and are more likely to be small for gestational age than infants born to women who do not smoke. The longer the mother smokes during pregnancy, the greater the effect on the infant’s birth weight.
   
• The risk for stillbirths and the risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are higher for the offspring of women who smoke during pregnancy.
   
• Women who smoke are less likely to breast-feed their infants than are women who do not.

Women who quit smoking before or during pregnancy reduce the risk for adverse reproductive outcomes, including difficulties in becoming pregnant, miscarriage, pre-term delivery, and low birth weight

Eliminating maternal smoking may lead to a 10% reduction in all infant deaths and a 12% reduction in deaths from perinatal conditions.

If you are a smoker and are pregnant and want to quit there are programs throughout the county to assist you - contact us for the programs closest to you.

INCENTIVE PROGRAM WITH TARGET STORES

Any pregnant woman who enrolls in a smoking cessation program and successfully completes the program is eligible for a $50 gift card to Target Stores. If she continues to be smoke free at a two month follow up visit, she will receive another $25 gift card.
For more information call:
412.322.8321