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Cot death warning for teen mums 

The children of young mothers are at much higher risk of cot death because their parent misses out on prevention advice, a charity has warned.

Sudden infant death is five times more common in the babies of teenage mothers compared with older mothers, according to national figures.

The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths said smoking was the key factor.

A Canadian study showed babies whose mothers smoked in pregnancy struggled to cope with minor breathing problems.

Across the UK, there was a modest fall in cot deaths - where a child dies suddenly and unexpectedly in its first year - from 355 in 2005 to 321 in 2006. . . .

However, the charity said the overall figures disguised a substantially bigger problem among teenagers.

In 2006, there were 58 deaths, a rate of 1.27 deaths for every 1,000 live births. Among the children of women aged over 35, the rate was just 0.23 per 1,000.

Chief executive Joyce Epstein said that key messages on smoking in pregnancy were not getting through: "It is totally unacceptable that the highest cot death rate occurs in the most disadvantaged groups.

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• Smoking during pregnancy a 'double-edged sword' in SIDS 

Premature infants whose mothers smoked during pregnancy may be at even higher risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) than preemies whose mothers did not smoke, according to new research out of the University of Calgary. In the first-ever experimental study to compare the breathing reflexes of preemies of smokers versus non-smokers, researchers found that babies whose mothers had smoked showed a number of signs of impaired respiratory function.

"Smoking during pregnancy is a double-edged sword with respect to SIDS," said Shabih Hasan, M.D., a staff neonatologist and professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Calgary, and the principal investigator of the new study. "Not only does it raise a mother's likelihood of having a preterm baby, who is already among the most vulnerable to SIDS, but it increases the infant's susceptibility to SIDS even further."

The research will be published in the first issue for September of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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Newly-defined factors may prevent postpartum smoking relapse 

By shedding light on the factors that enable the other half to put down that cigarette for good, a study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill could lead to programs designed to help women quit and stay quit.

According to the study, women with a live-in partner who shared some of the burden of child-rearing were more likely to remain smoke free, while women who were single mothers or who lacked the social and financial resources to deal with being a new parent were more likely to relapse.

"In the future we can look at these and other factors in women who quit smoking during pregnancy to assess who is at low or high risk of relapse," said Carol E. Ripley-Moffitt, MDiv, research associate in UNC's department of family medicine and the study's lead author. "We can then offer more intensive interventions for those at higher risk to address the physical, behavioral and social issues related to relapse."

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No Need for Research of Nicotine in Pregnancy?  

This week, a Richmond paper reports on a VCU proposal for a Center for Healthy Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcomes submitted in May or June to Philip Morris (despite repeated initial denials by the University) for up to $30M in funding. . . .

the reporter’s focus was rightfully whether an academic health center should even be soliciting funds from the tobacco industry for a purely public health project to stop the harmful effects of smoking during pregnancy. At least one outside expert felt unsettled as well:

“No reputable organization will accept money from the tobacco industry in the public-health sector, and none will solicit it,” says John F. Banzhaf III, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University, and a tobacco industry opponent for more than 40 years. Banzhaf is particularly concerned that Strauss’s proposal went looking for the money: “Solicitation is very unusual.”

Indeed, even a local business writer and VCU booster in Richmond had concerns with this aspect of the proposal and the manner in which the University handled the request and then the denials of making such a request.

There also remain all those statements that seem rather dismissive of the research process made by Strauss, who is an established physician scientist serving as Dean of the VCU School of Medicine (and by default the “emerging” VCU School of Public Health), which received $56.5M from the NIH in 2007; as Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs for the VCU Health System; and, astonishingly, as PI on:

* one P60 Comprehensive Center Grant (P60MD002256-02), . . .

Notably, despite his passionate stance that it would be “immoral not to” use tobacco funds for this “noble and unimpeachable” cause, Strauss’s own sponsored programs are bench science, not clinical or public health in design. Nor, given the level of funding requested, does he appear sufficiently noble to donate his time to this “urgent public health service.” Nor, surprisingly, has he seemed to have considered simply asking GlaxoSmithKline to donate the nicotine replacement products (versus asking Philip Morris for cash with which to purchase them).

Then again, his stated lack of desire to publish this work –

“His goal with the pregnancy center is not to study the effects of nicotine replacement therapy on pregnant women and publish the results, he says”

– could finally explain why VCU so willingly gives Philip Morris the right to control publication of research conducted under their previously secret agreement uncovered by the NYT last May. (see also this explanation of how Philip Morris finagled this and the IP giveaway plus a downloadable copy of the actual agreement, which remains fully in effect) . . .

Next Town Hall Meeting to discuss the relationship between VCU and Philip Morris (including Dr. Strauss's center proposal) will be held Wednesday, September 3 from 4-6 p.m. in the Student Commons Theatre

September 3 Town Hall Meeting Participant Handout (to submit written comments anonymously)

September 3 Town Hall Meeting Agenda

This has not been announced on the VCU Calendar as of today (8/25), despite having been scheduled in July. Please spread the word since VCU does not intend to.

More details on the Town Hall Meeting and the Task Force itself are available, as is a detailed review of the terms of the master research services agreement currently in effect between VCU and Philip Morris (uncovered by the NYT in May 2008).

Sign the petition expressing concern about the relationship between VCU AND Philip Morris USA

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• Exclusive: Coronation Street's pregnant Alison King is ordered to smoke  

She's pregnant in real-life - but stunned Corrie star Alison King has been ordered by soap bosses to start smoking again.

In a controversial storyline, her bitchy Street character Carla Connor lights up because she is so stressed-out.

Actress Alison, 35 - who immediately packed in when she learned she was expecting her first child next February - has been told she will be provided with HERBAL cigs for the scenes.

But she has revealed to friends she was horrified when she saw the script called for her to start puffing away.

A source said: "She isn't best pleased. It was hard enough for her to give up in real life.

"And even inhaling smoke from herbal tobacco surely can't be a good thing for a mum-to-be."

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• Patch Job 

It's buried in a funding proposal floated by Virginia Commonwealth University to create a new health center for pregnant women: Research shows that nicotine entering the bloodstream of pregnant women enrolled in smoking-cessation programs improves the health of their unborn children.

Indeed, in the annals of tobacco-related research there isn't a consensus on the effects of nicotine patches and cessation therapy during pregnancy. The lack of consensus, though, isn't what goads critics. It's that the nicotine replacement claim is part of a funding proposal that VCU recently shopped to Altria, parent company of Philip Morris USA.

The proposal is at the heart of the uproar over VCU's research partnership with Philip Morris.

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Does the end justify the means? Am I willing to take tobacco money to do good? Yeah. I think it's immoral not to.
Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School Dean Jerome Strauss, originator and a key proponent of a proposal that Philip Morris fund the new VCU Center for Healthy Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcomes. The proposal claims that research shows that nicotine entering the bloodstream of pregnant women enrolled in smoking-cessation programs improves the health of their unborn children.

• Calling Philip Morris? VCU Courted Tobacco Money  

Virginia Commonwealth University officials have repeatedly denied the existence of a proposal to create a women's health center funded by Philip Morris USA, but a draft copy of the proposal shows the idea did -- and in some iteration still does -- exist.

A copy of a working paper titled "Proposal to Create the VCU Center for Health Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcomes," obtained by Style Weekly, shows plans for a center focused on treatment and research into preventing defects, early birth and mortality.

The proposal touches on a smoking cessation program to prevent "chronic disease resulting from smoking-related pregnancy complications."

Amid the controversy swirling around the university's relationship with Philip Morris USA, which has cooperated in and paid for tobacco-related research on campus, the health-center proposal offers an unusual twist. In part, the memo obtained by Style reveals a plan for how VCU could solicit money from Philip Morris. . . .

"This was a proposal that the dean of medicine shopped with Philip Morris," says a medical school faculty member, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Since all this has broken, [Strauss] has said [in meetings] that Philip Morris did not accept it or they did not fund it." . . .

David DeBiasi, director of advocacy with the American Lung Association of Virginia, is also aware of the proposal. He says he was "pretty concerned" by Macrina's denial of the proposal's existence.

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• BJOG Release: Using Nicotine Replacement Therapy During Pregnancy 

To assist in smoking cessation, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is commonly prescribed but there is little information about the effects of NRT on a pregnant woman and her baby. New research to be published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology examines whether NRT is safe to use during pregnancy.

87, 032 singleton pregnancies from the Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC) over the period 1996 - 2002 were selected for the study. . . .

The study confirms that smoking during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of stillbirth regardless of whether NRT was used. 2% of women in the study used NRT. Researchers found that women using NRT during pregnancy tended to be older (35 years and above), were first-time mothers and had normal weight (BMI below 25). . . .

"Our study suggests that NRT-assisted smoking cessation or smoking reduction in early pregnancy provides some protection from stillbirth among women who continue to smoke during pregnancy. More research on a range of smoking-associated health outcomes is needed if we are to understand the overall safety of NRT use in pregnancy."

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• Smoking mothers put second child at risk: study 

A large Australian health study has found that women who smoke in their first pregnancy are also putting their second baby at risk of being born small or premature.

Researchers from Sydney's Liverpool Hospital examined the medical records from almost 245,000 mothers who gave birth to two children.

They found women who smoked in the first pregnancy but not the second still had a higher risk of having a pre-term baby.

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Maternal smoking linked to depression in kids 

Women who smoke during pregnancy may be putting their children at increased risk of suffering from anxiety, depression or withdrawal, Dutch researchers say.

Maternal smoking has been associated with externalizing behaviour such as aggression, hyperactivity and delinquency, which may begin in childhood and persist into adulthood.

Dr. Pol A.C. van Lier and colleagues at VU University of Amsterdam believe anxiety and depression, or internalizing behaviours, should be added to the list. . . .

The findings, which are published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, "suggest prenatally exposed children had significantly increased internalizing and externalizing problems from childhood into late adolescence," the researchers said.

"Clinicians should be aware when working with children whose mothers smoked."

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• Pregnancy can motivate smokers to kick the habit  

Morning sickness and dry heaves made her too nauseated to crave cigarettes. And seeing pictures of low-birth-weight babies at a health clinic made her determined to protect her child.

"Those pictures just broke my heart," says Adams, 22, of Shawnee, Okla., whose first child was born in 2006. "I said, 'I'm not going to put my kid through that.' "

Adams quit cold turkey, becoming part of the 45% of pregnant smokers who give up cigarettes. That is far higher than the 10% to 20% rate among all smokers who typically quit after going through a smoking-cessation program, says Tom Glynn of the American Cancer Society. . . .

Moms need more help, both for their sakes and for the health of their children, Parks says. Most smokers aren't aware of resources to help them quit, says Tracy Orleans, senior scientist at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "These women believe that all it takes is willpower, but that's just not the case," she says.

Doctors play an important role in helping smokers quit. Research shows that even three minutes of smoking-cessation counseling can double a pregnant woman's chance of quitting, Orleans says.

More intensive counseling is even more effective.

In one promising approach funded by her foundation, counselors reward pregnant women who remain smoke-free with coupons for baby supplies, Orleans says.

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• Smokers should not have IVF treatment  

In a survey to mark the 30th birthday of Louise Brown, the first test tube baby, more than half of 200 experts questioned said lifestyle factors such as smoking should be taken into account when deciding whether patients are allowed IVF.

They outnumbered the 29 per cent who agreed with the statement "access to IVF should be offered to all regardless of lifestyle". . . .

The survey, conducted by the British Fertility Society (BFS) in conjunction with the Science Media Centre in London and the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Eshre), found doctors believe infertility rates will continue to increase.

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• Early Exposure To Tobacco Smoke Causes Asthma And Allergy 

Babies exposed to cigarette smoke before birth or during the first months afterwards run a greater risk of developing asthma and allergy. This according to a doctoral thesis from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet.

It is a well known fact that babies are harmed by tobacco smoke in numerous ways, but it has always been difficult to separate the effects of the mother smoking during pregnancy and passive smoking after birth. Dr Eva Lanner�'s doctoral thesis now provides new detailed knowledge on how exposure to tobacco smoke early in life influences the risk of developing allergy and asthma respectively.

The thesis, which is based on the so called BAMSE study, shows that smoking during pregnancy increases the chances of the child developing asthma. The study showed that children of mothers who had smoked while pregnant ran double the risk of developing asthma before the age of four. There was also a clear correlation between the number of cigarettes smoked and the risk of developing asthma. . . .

Thesis: 'Parental smoking, wheezing and sensitisation in early childhood', Eva Lannero Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM), Karolinska Institutet

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New quit smoking program needed 

QUIT smoking programs targeting Aboriginal people may need to be redesigned, as evidence mounts that existing policies are failing to make a dent in sky-high smoking rates among pregnant indigenous women.

Researchers say that programs successful among non-indigenous people are having little to no impact in the Aboriginal community, because most of the programs take scant account of the social and cultural pressures keeping indigenous smoking rates high.

Studies suggest at least 50 per cent of pregnant Aboriginal women smoke during pregnancy, and some research indicates the rate could be as high as between 60 and 70 per cent.

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IVF equality up in smoke 

SMOKERS have been banned from having IVF treatment, Wales on Sunday can reveal.

Hospitals have been accused of rationing IVF by denying the treatment to smokers.

And it is not just childless women that are being forced to give up the habit before they are considered for the fertility treatment.

Health Commission Wales, the country's main health watchdog, said their partners must also quit smoking before the treatment is given. . . .

A spokesperson for Health Commission Wales confirmed the policy.

He said: "Couples or single women that smoke will only be accepted on to the IVF treatment waiting list if they agree to take part in a supported programme of smoking cessation and must be non-smoking at time of treatment. This is because smoke inhalation has a negative impact on the effectiveness of IVF treatment."

But Infertility UK, which represents patients, slammed the rules and said it was denying people their fundamental right to have children.

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