SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS AND MATERNAL CIGARETTE-SMOKING BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER A PREGNANCY

Research suggests that cigarette use declines when women find out they are pregnant, increasing again after the birth. Pregnancy may provide many women with a substantial impetus to stopping smoking. Also, rate s of smoking cessation and reduction may be class-related, with the hi ghest socioeconomic-status groups manifesting higher rates of reductio n. Using data from die Mater Hospital-University of Queensland Study o f Pregnancy we report family income related to rates of smoking before , during and after a pregnancy. Before becoming pregnant, 45.9 per ce nt of women in the sample were smokers. This declined to 34.7 per cent of women at their first clinic visit. Rates of heavy smoking (20 or m ore cigarettes per day) had returned to earlier levels by the six-mont h (after birth) follow-up. Women in the lowest family-income group had the highest rates of cigarette use before, during and after their pre gnancy; Of the lowest family-income group, 8.4 per cent were heavy smo kers before, during and after their pregnancy compared with 2.8 per ce nt of women in the highest family-income group. Smoking cessation rate s were highest in the highest family-income group (those who smoked le ast), but relapse rates after the birth were similar fur all income gr oups. Arresting rates of smoking relapse by pregnant women should be s een as a major public health priority.