Tobacco And The Mother

Tobacco can have several adverse health effects and increase the smoker's risk of heart disease, cancer, and other major health diseases. A sick parent can have a large impact on the life of the child. Smoking is not only damaging to the smoker, but in cases when a woman is pregnant smoking can also cause health problems for the infant such as premature birth, birth defects, or infant death. 

 

Tobacco And The Infant

An infant exposed to tobacco and nicotine is at greater risk for:

• Low or Extremely low birth weight, head circumference, and length

• Neurobehavioral effects, leading to poor cognitive, psychomotor, or language skills and general academic achievement

• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

• Hospitalizations

• Perinatal morbidity

• Birth defects (a small increased risk)

• Prematurity

   

Prevelance: A Look At The Data 

• Approximately 10% of women reported smoking during the last 3 months of pregnancy (Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System, 2011)

• Of women who smoked 3 months before pregnancy, 55% quit during pregnancy. Among women who quit smoking during pregnancy, 40% relapsed within 6 months after delivery (Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System, 2011)

• In Arizona in 2014: 4.1%, or 3,552 mothers reported smoking during pregnancy (ADHS, 2015)

 

Financial Impact: What does caring for a child who's been exposure to tobacco cost?

• Preventing one smoking-related low birth weight baby can save more than $40,000 in health care expenditures (Tobacco Control journal, 2003)

• If 25 percent of pregnant smokers on Medicaid receive counseling that achieves an 18 percent quit rate, almost $10 million in excess Medicaid neonatal health care costs could be averted (CDC, 2002)

• If pregnant smokers recieve one counseling session that costs $30 and this results in an 18 percent quit rate, Medicaid could save around $3.50 in averted neonatal medical expenditures for every $1 spent on counseling pregnant smokers to quit. (CDC, 2002)