Nicotine Patches Prove Ineffective for Pregnant Women

Pregnant women trying to quit smoking may have to try an option other than nicotine patches. According to a recent study, the smoking cessation therapy patches proved to have absolutely no effect on a pregnant woman's ability to kick the habit.

The study, which was published in the British Medical Journal, assessed the ability to quit in 402 pregnant women 18 years old or older. All the women involved in this study reported smoking at least five cigarettes a day and expressed the desire to quit prior to becoming participants. Standard brand nicotine patches were given to 203 of the participants and 199 were given placebo patches that did not administer nicotine. The women were assessed monthly and all also received behavioral smoking cessation support in addition to the patches.

The study ended with only about five percent of the participants in each group being able to fully quit smoking, at least until giving birth. Eleven women in the nicotine patch group archiving complete abstinence from smoking, while of the women in the placebo group, 10 women were able to kick the habit.

Also, in both groups it took about 15 days for a participant to pick up cigarettes once more after their first attempt at quitting.

Interestingly, the researchers also recorded the birth weights of each participant's child after he or she was delivered. Past research has indicated that exposure to tobacco smoke prenatally lowers the average birth weight in infants. The hope was that if even temporary smoking cessation was achieved more frequently in either group, the children born of that group would present a higher average weight. However, the average birth weight from both groups was nearly identical, ranging just a little over 3000 grams (~6.6 lb.).

With these results the researchers were able to conclude that nicotine patch therapy is not an effective smoking cessation option for pregnant women.

While reasons for this remain purely theoretical, research can say for sure that it is better for both mother a child for a woman planning to get pregnant to quit smoking prior to pregnancy, when therapies like the nicotine patch are still viable options.

The study was published in the British Medical Journal on March 11.