In several French hospitals, doctors have financially rewarded pregnant women to encourage them to quit smoking. We will know in a few months if this experiment was useful in the long term.
It is well known that smoking is very bad for your health and even more dangerous when you are pregnant. Despite numerous studies and recommendations from public authorities on the subject, many women are unable to quit smoking during their pregnancy. In France, 16% of women continue to smoke in the third trimester. This is why scientists are thinking about the possibility of giving bonuses to pregnant women so that they stop smoking. In the United States, a similar study has already been carried out and has given very convincing results. Here, 460 women took part in the study, carried out in hospitals in Ile-de-France, in Béarn or even in Brittany, a region particularly concerned by the subject.
“A lot of work on the training of professionals”
Indeed, in Brittany, female smoking is much higher than the national average and 28% of pregnant women still smoke in the third trimester. Tuesday, January 28, the Regional Health Agency and the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addictology (Anpaa) also organized a symposium in Rennes to educate future mothers about the dangers of cigarettes.
“Perhaps in Brittany it is too socially acceptable to smoke during pregnancy. Perhaps there is work to be done, information in particular with a certain public, underprivileged. We also need to do a lot of work on the training of professionals, to help them better support women, to get out of tobacco”, explains Doctor Catherine de Bournonville, pulmonologist and tobacco specialist at the University Hospital of Rennes in France 3 Brittany. “This phenomenon is first of all worrying, because of the consequences of smoking. There may be effects during pregnancy, on its progress with risks for the baby, a risk of premature delivery. It is also one of the contributing factors, among the toxic causes that can cause sudden infant death syndrome,” she explains. A recent study has also proven that, combined with alcohol, cigarettes during pregnancy could increase this risk by 12.
“Society’s view of pregnant women’s smoking is very harsh, including from caregivers. Some find it hard to come for a consultation because they think it will be the start of the quitting and don’t want to face it. We all know someone who smoked during pregnancy and whose baby is fine. This makes the mother feel guilty. But first you have to help them”, explains doctor Tiphaine Houet-Zuccalli, addictologist at the Fougères hospital (Ille-et-Vilaine), interviewed by 20 minutes.
A gift voucher of 20 euros
At Brest University Hospital, Marine Breton, a midwife and tobacco specialist, offered a €20 gift voucher for several months to pregnant women who had not started smoking again since the last consultation. To verify abstinence, measurements of carbon monoxide levels in the lungs were taken. “At first, it was very badly perceived by the medical profession, it was disturbing”, testifies the specialist to the daily. Eventually, this initiative helped some future mothers to give up smoking, she says.
However, it will be necessary to wait for the official publication of the results in June to know how many have definitively quit smoking thanks to this initiative. But if the results prove convincing, it remains to be seen who would agree to finance this new measure…
The latter is reminiscent of the one recently taken by the British recruitment firm KCJ Training and Employment. Rather than sanctioning its 11 smoking employees, the company decided to motivate them to quit permanently by offering them four additional days off. “I thought, ‘Why don’t we all quit smoking?’ I told the employees what I was going to do. Those who don’t take a smoke break will get four extra vacation days per year… I prefer to reward non-smokers and encourage smokers to quit because a healthier workplace is a happier workplace,” explained Don Bryden, the firm’s director, himself a smoker, at the site Recruiter. The businessman therefore encourages British employers to follow his example, by carefully assessing the situation of each smoker on a case-by-case basis.
Indeed, companies have every interest in their employees quitting smoking. According to the survey “Tobacco, territory, work” conducted in June 2009 by the CSA health institute in France, employees who smoke are “less productive, less concentrated at work, more subject to road risks and more often ill” than those who do not smoke.
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