Are you worried about smoking in your pregnancy? Giving up smoking in the early stages of your pregnancy could reverse some risk.

We all know that smoking in pregnancy carries a lot of risk for having pregnancy complications.  Some of the well known are preterm birth which is the second most common cause of infant death.  Newborns are born below the ideal birth weight, smoking can increase rates in ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, as well as neonatal death and stillbirth.

SOME GOOD NEWS

A press release just came out from the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland today saying that giving up smoking early in pregnancy reverses risk of complications.  The lead researcher Associate Professor Lesley McCowan says “for the first time we have shown that pregnant women who stop smoking during this window of opportunity can prevent serious late pregnancy complication.

Associate Professor Lesley McCowan also says “The findings are significant because they show that maternity care providers should see women early in pregnancy and emphasize the importance of giving up smoking before fifteen weeks, with the goal of becoming smoke free as early as possible in pregnancy“.

The women in the research that do not stop smoking with in that window of opportunity (before 15 weeks) are three times more likely to have a premature birth than non-smokers.

It has always been said that when you stop smoking this could lead to stress and a lot of women believe this.

Well, they also found that women that stop smoking before that 15 week period ARE NOT more stressed than the women that do not quick smoking.  Dr McCowan says “This challenges the widely-held assumption that giving up smoking leads to increased stress and it’s an important message for women who are daunted by the idea of trying to quit“.

The participation of 2,500 women in the study were surveyed at fifteen weeks of gestatin. The study was the landmark SCOPE (Screening of Pregnancy Endpoints) in New Zealand and Australia.

At the Auckland meeting of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists the findings were presented  and the finding were published in the British Medical Journal.

If you would like to read up more on the SCOPE study and the results they are available free online at http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/338 .

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