Suche
Mein Konto
Study results show that pregnant smokers reduce their smoking before they become aware of pregnancy
Pregnant smokers reduced their smoking by an average of one cigarette per day before realizing they were pregnant, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study of more than 400 pregnant people. Then, in the month after announcing their pregnancy, the participants reduced smoking by an additional four cigarettes per day. "Our results suggest that pregnancy may curb smokers' cravings before they even realize they are pregnant," said the study's lead author and principal investigator, Dr. Suena Huang Massey, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine...
Study results show that pregnant smokers reduce their smoking before they become aware of pregnancy
Pregnant smokers reduced their smoking by an average of one cigarette per day before realizing they were pregnant, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study of more than 400 pregnant people. Then, in the month after announcing their pregnancy, the participants reduced smoking by an additional four cigarettes per day.
"Our results suggest that pregnancy may curb smokers' cravings before they even realize they are pregnant," said the study's lead author and principal investigator, Dr. Suena Huang Massey, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a psychiatrist at Northwestern Medicine.
"While recognition of pregnancy is a common motivation to reduce or quit smoking, accurately identifying these processes may lead to the development of new drugs for smoking cessation when biological processes in early pregnancy are also involved, as this study suggests."
The study was published Oct. 17 in Addiction Biology.
The vast majority of research in this area focuses on the effects of smoking on pregnancy and the baby. This study instead examines the effects of pregnancy on a person's smoking behavior.
While reducing smoking during pregnancy is well documented, no previous studies have been able to determine exactly when smoking reduction in pregnancy begins - and particularly whether it begins before people are aware of the pregnancy.
Prior to this article, it was widely believed that the only reason pregnant smokers quit is to protect the baby. While our study supports the discovery of pregnancy as a salient event, smoking rates in pregnancy began to decline before smokers suspected they were pregnant.
Dr. Suena Huang Massey, associate professor of psychiatry, behavioral sciences and medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
These findings support a new line of research into what happens biologically during pregnancy that might interrupt addictive behavior, Massey said. She hopes the answer to this question will lead to the discovery of new and improved ways to treat addiction.
Could pregnancy hormones be a factor?
Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a hormone produced by the placenta in early pregnancy and is associated with morning sickness (nausea and vomiting during pregnancy).
"Remarkably, we observed the greatest decline in smoking right when hCG levels typically peak - namely between the fifth and tenth weeks of pregnancy," said Massey. “In addition, pregnant smokers who quit smoking in the first trimester (when hCG levels are elevated) are unlikely to quit before delivery, even with the help of medication or financial incentives.”
More about how the study worked
Researchers estimated retrospectively reported changes in cigarettes smoked per day by 416 participants from two independent cohorts (145 people from the Midwestern US, recruited from 2000 to 2005 and 271 from the Mid-Atlantic US, recruited from 2006 to 2009). Each participant was a smoker before becoming pregnant. Women participating in the study were interviewed about their smoking habits at 16 weeks of pregnancy and provided urine samples so researchers could verify their reports.
On average, the participants smoked about 10 cigarettes per day before conception. Between conception and the date they realized they were pregnant (very different and reported by each participant), smoking decreased by an average of one cigarette per day. In the month after discovering the pregnancy, smoking dropped from an average of nine cigarettes per day to five. Importantly, these patterns of decline in smoking prevalence were observed regardless of whether pregnancies were planned or unplanned and whether smokers had quit smoking or not.
Source:
Reference:
Ennerfelt, H., et al. (2022) Within-person declines in smoking in pregnancy occur before awareness of pregnancy: evidence from two independent observational cohorts. Addiction biology. doi.org/10.1111/adb.13245.
.