SMOKING PATTERNS OF LOW-INCOME ETHNOCULTURALLY DIVERSE PREGNANT-WOMEN- ARE WE CASTING THE NET WIDE ENOUGH

Cigarette smoking poses significant risk to mother and infant during p regnancy and the postpartum period. Recruitment of pregnant smokers to intervention studies has often been reactive and has excluded certain subgroups of women, such as those who have recently quit smoking. In this study, we examined smoking patterns among a preactively recruited sample of women presenting to six urban community maternity clinics. The current report describes the patterns of smoking in this populatio n of ethnoculturally diverse low-income urban pregnant women and exami nes differences across subgroups. The majority of the total sample in the current study reported that they had never smoked. Of the total, 3 0% reported having ''ever'' smoked and 16% were current smokers. Of th e group of ''ever'' smokers, 18% quit greater than 12 months before pr egnancy, 5% quit 0-12 months before pregnancy and 23% quit during this pregnancy. On the average, women who quit during pregnancy did so abo ut 5 weeks after diagnosis. Of those women who continued to smoke duri ng pregnancy, the average number of cigarettes smoked per day was 10 /- 8. Differences were found in smoking patterns across the ethnocultu ral subgroups. Recruitment represents the first and one of the most im portant phases in intervening with pregnant women. Inclusion of both c urrent smokers and recent self-quitters takes the fullest advantage of the window of opportunity to help women quit smoking and remain cigar ette free for good. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.