Yvonne Hermon Smoking and Pregnancy Coordinator, Dudley Office of Pubilc Health, Dudley
Abstract
Engaging with women who smoke during pregnancy is a challenge. Dudley has a robust opt out referral system for pregnant smokers giving us 796 referrals in 2011/12 of which 346 (43%) accepted a face to face meeting with a smoking and pregnancy advisor of which 265 (77%) set a quit date with 56% remaining quit at 4 weeks. However, 531 smokers opted not to engage with our service for support to quit. We wanted to understand the barriers women face and why they chose not to engage with us and despite advice not to, continue to smoke in pregnancy.
In 2012, we commenced an innovative creative arts social marketing project which took us to local social clubs using a comedienne who delivered a stand up routine about her "pregnant smoking daughter", a visual artist talked to young women in a homeless centre; many of whom had been or were pregnant and we sat in antenatal clinics offering hand massage to pregnant women, relaxing enough to talk about their reasons for not giving up smoking and what would influence them to seek help.�Our findings resulted in the birth of our new smoking and pregnancy campaign Bloomin' for a smokefree pregnancy.
Source of funding: Dudley Stop Smoking Service funded this project through their Public Health Budget.
Declaration of interest: In the past I have received funding from NCSCT for development of the smoking and pregnancy online training. But currently do not receive any funding from any other source other than my salaried work, which this project was part of developing our smoking and pregnancy service.
