Nottingham mothers stop smoking project -- baseline survey of smoking in pregnancy.

In the largest survey of smoking in pregnancy to date in the United Kingdom, 3882 women attending the two antenatal clinics in Nottingham during July and August 1986, were asked about their smoking habits. Thirty-seven per cent of pregnant women were smoking and only one in four of these was successful at stopping at some point during pregnancy. However, 55 per cent of the mothers who smoked at the start of pregnancy claimed to smoke less during pregnancy. No change was reported in the habits of one-quarter of the mothers who smoked during pregnancy and this proportion may represent an 'irreducible minimum'. Mothers were more likely to continue to smoke if younger (14-20 years), single, living with a partner who smoked, who left school at 16 years and were from manual working families. Those who succeeded in giving up smoking during pregnancy were more likely to be from professional and managerial families. Antenatal booklets about the dangers of smoking were the source of information cited most frequently. Half of the smoking mothers claimed not to have received advice from their family practitioners about the hazards of smoking nor information about how to give up the habit. Even fewer received such advice from hospital doctors, or midwives. This represents a major challenge to professional training in health education.