According to a study in BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, a substantial number of women planning a pregnancy are nicotine smokers.
The study involved over 130,000 women, with the use of Tommy’s Planning for Pregnancy tool to assess the participants.
Conducted by King’s College London, the study “described all women planning pregnancy and compared the frequency of non-adherence to preconception recommendations in women who had already stopped contraception (active planners) and those who had not (non-active planners).”
As part of their investigation of the health behaviors of British women planning pregnancy, researchers concluded that out of nearly 130,000 participants, about 64 percent of which were in the planning stages of pregnancy, an estimated 20 percent of the participants were regular smokers.
“Smokers were 1.87 times more likely to be active planners than non-smokers, and women who took folic acid were 7 times more likely to be active planners compared to women who did not,” the authors of the study stated in their findings.
“Smoking, drug use and lack of folic acid supplementation were common in younger women and those who were underweight.”
“This study provides a contemporary basis from which to inform preconception health advice and a benchmark to measure changes over time,” researchers concluded.
