By Europe correspondent Barbara Miller
Offering shopping vouchers to pregnant smokers can make them significantly more likely to give up nicotine, a study in the UK has found.
Study after study has shown smoking during pregnancy puts babies at risk but many women just cannot shake the habit.
The study authors conceded the new intervention is controversial, but said in the long run it could save money.
Several-hundred pregnant women were offered a total of $750 in shopping vouchers, in conjunction with counselling, if they could give up cigarettes.
Of those who joined the voucher and counselling trial 23 per cent managed to quit, compared to just 9 per cent of those offered only counselling.
Professor of Health Policy at Stirling University and one of the lead authors of the study Linda Bauld said the prevalence of smoking during pregnancy was a significant public health challenge.
“We really need to take prevention more seriously through providing support and reward rather than blame and stigma. That’s what I often say to people who say, ‘this is ridiculous, you’re using taxpayers’ money’,” she said.
“Unfortunately the taxpayers’ money is going to end up being paid for the babies who don’t have ideal health outcomes because their mum smoked in pregnancy or indeed for the women who continue to smoke and they need to be treated for a smoking-related disease later in life.”
Ms Bauld said almost all the women in the study came from relatively deprived parts of west Scotland.
“We think that giving them the incentive also added to the resources they had available to them and their families during a challenging time.”
Breath tests were carried out throughout the pregnancy to ensure the women were not sneaking in a quick cigarette.
“They had to give a urine and saliva sample and they didn’t know exactly when they would have to give that,” Ms Bauld said.
“We can test for nicotine in the samples so we can be relatively confident that our results actually reflect what was happening in reality in the trial.”
‘My hands would shake with guilt’, mum says
Mel, a woman who smoked during a pregnancy, told the BBC she did not think she would have been swayed by the offer of shopping vouchers.
“I’d been addicted to cigarettes by then for about, gosh, 18 years or something … and a few shopping vouchers wouldn’t have made a difference,” she said.
“I hadn’t prepared mentally for pregnancy and for giving up smoking. I would always have presumed that I would have given up beforehand and it was just very, very, very hard. I desperately wanted to.
“My hands would shake with sort of guilt as I reached for a cigarette and I just couldn’t stop.”
The researchers said one year after giving birth, 17 per cent of the women who gave up smoking on the shopping voucher scheme were still off cigarettes compared to 4 per cent of those offered only counselling.
They said the results were very promising and potentially cost-effective.