Pregnant women who smoke cannot be helped to quit by nicotine patches, according to a major analysis published today.
Recent figures published in the UK have highlighted the large number of women who continue to smoke throughout pregnancy – in spite of clear advice of the dangers.
The Nottingham University, UK, researchers say the metabolism of pregnant women processes nicotine faster than other people – meaning high doses would be needed for patches to be effective.
Some 1,000 pregnant women took part in the research in the Midlands of England and the county of Cheshire.
Half the women had nicotine patches and half had placebo patches, at first for a four week period.
All the women had counselling from midwives during research – and women who successfully quit were offered another four months of patches.
The research found that 9.4 per cent of the women who received nicotine quit – while 7.6 per cent of those who had fake patches successfully gave up.
The researchers say their trial, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved four times as many women as any previous study of the issue.
Researcher Professor Tim Coleman said: "We think our findings are hugely significant.
"Smoking in pregnancy is the leading preventable cause of morbidity, death and health problems among women and babies. We hope our results will inform future health care policy and guidelines in the field of smoking cessation during pregnancy. Clearly standard dose nicotine patches do not work in pregnancy as well as they do in the general smoking population. More research is needed.
"Higher dose patches might be effective, but women would also need to be persuaded to use these for longer and research into other ways to help pregnant women give up is also needed."
* A survey published yesterday – on Leap Day – showed many women resistant to marrying, or having a baby with, a man who smokes.
Some 51 per cent of women described smoking as a barrier to romance in a survey of more than 2,000 people.
Vishnee Sauntoo, of the British Heart Foundation, said: “Smoking is a real turn off when it comes to love and romance, so we’re hoping our more unusual Leap Year proposal will increase the nation’s chance of saying ‘I do’ as well as improving people’s health."
A randomised trial of nicotine-replacement therapy patches in pregnancy. The New England Journal of Medicine March 1 2012
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