Pregnant Women Smoking

Growing public awareness of the adverse effects of smoking on pregnancy has led an increasing number of pregnant smokers to conceal or under report their smoking behavior.
             The goal adopted for the year 2010 is to reduce cigarette smoking among pregnant women to a prevalence of no more than 2%. This is an especially ambitious goal given that rates of smoking among teenage girls have risen substantially over the past decade. The 1999 Monitoring the Future Survey found over a third of 12th grade girls (17-18 years of age) report smoking in the past 30 days. Without vigorous, widespread, and innovative efforts over the next decade, they are unlikely to achieve this new goal. Hence, as they enter a new decade and a new century, reducing national smoking rates in pregnancy remains a national public health priority.
             Evaluation of School-based Programs.
             Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the United States, contributing to more than 430,000 deaths annually.1 Tobacco control programs are designed ultimately to help reduce disease, disability, and death related to tobacco use. To determine the effectiveness of these programs, one must document and measure both their implementation and their effect. Program evaluation is a tool used to assess the implementation and outcomes of a program, to increase a program's efficiency and impact over time, and to demonstrate accountability.
             School-based programs are reported to be among the most effective means of preventing tobacco use among youth. School are effective places for prevention programs because they are able to reach all young people and because students are in an environment where they are accustomed to learning important life skills.
             Even if school-based programs are effective only in delaying the onset of smoking among children and teens, they are still worthwhile, according to experts. Even a delay reduces the chances that a young person will become a regular smoker as an adult and diminishes the odds for developing lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases later in life.