Tobacco Poses Threat To Mothers In Developing World

Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Article Date: 05 Mar 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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U.S researchers said that pregnant women's exposure to tobacco in developing countries is growing at an alarming rate.

Women in developing countries and their children are increasingly breathing secondhand smoke in their homes and many more are beginning to experiment with smoking, increasing the risk of cancer, heart disease and illness not only for themsevles but also for their children.

Dr. Michele Bloch of the National Cancer Institute's Tobacco Control Research Branch, whose study appears in the American Journal of Public Health said, "Pregnant women's tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke threaten to impede or reverse ongoing efforts to improve maternal and child health in the developing world."

The study is the first to examine pregnant women's tobacco use, exposure to secondhand smoke and attitudes about tobacco use in many developing countries.

It involved 8,000 interviews with pregnant women at 10 study sites in nine countries, including Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Brazil, Pakistan, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The researchers found as many as 18 percent of pregnant women smoked cigarettes, up to one-third used smokeless tobacco and as many as half regularly breathed in secondhand smoke.

Bloch said these trends represent a major shift among women in developing countries, where historically about 9 percent of women used tobacco, due in part to strong cultural taboos.

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death among women in developed countries, and Bloch said the findings offer a chance to intervene before women in the developing world match that grim statistic.

She added, "Latin America is where the epidemic of cigarette smoking is most advanced, particularly in Uruguay, where 78 percent of all pregnant women said they had ever tried a cigarette. In Argentina, 75 percent of pregnant women interviewed said they had tried smoking."

Smokeless tobacco was used by a third of the women in the Indian state of Orissa, while the highest levels of secondhand smoke exposure was found in Pakistan.

"Young children in Pakistan are frequently or always exposed to tobacco smoke indoors. The numbers were also high in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and one of the Indian states."

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