Exercise can help pregnant women give up smoking
Exercise could help pregnant women give up smoking
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Tuesday, 23, Sep 2008 08:51
Exercise could help pregnant women give up smoking, new research has claimed.
Despite health warning, some 17 per cent of women in the UK and 20 per cent in the US still admit to smoking during pregnancy.
Health experts claim that doing so can lead to lower birth weight, higher infant mortality, learning difficulties, problem behaviour and asthma in childhood.
Reports suggest that nicotine replacement may harm foetuses and as result the authors of a study published in the journal BMC public health today suggest that exercise could help reduce the cravings experienced by smokers.
There is also some evidence to show that it can help non-pregnant women to quit.
Michael Ussher and colleagues from St George's, University of London, conducted two pilot studies into whether physical exercise could actually help pregnant women quit smoking.
Pregnant women over the age of 18 who smoked at least one cigarette a day and were 12 to 20 weeks into their pregnancy were used in the studies.
In one study, the women exercised once a week for six weeks and in the other, the participants were involved in two sessions of exercise a week for six weeks, then one session a week for three weeks.
A quarter of the 32 women used in the studies then gave up smoking before giving birth and the participants reported other benefits including weight loss, improved self-image and reduced cravings.
"These results are very encouraging and we are now conducting a randomised controlled trial with 850 women. Regular exercise is ideal for any pregnant women who smoke as it's obviously safe and the benefits are enormous," Dr Ussher claimed.