Ways to quit smoking

 

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health data revealed that about 17 percent of pregnant women reported smoking.

Younger women, ages 15–25, had a higher rate of smoking than pregnant women ages 26–44 years. Smoking results in a significantly increased risk for delivering a low-birth weight baby. As can be seen from the table below, in 2001, about 7 percent of nonsmokers had babies with low birth weight, compared with nearly 12 percent of mothers who were smokers.

Tobacco is a problematic drug in terms of both the prevalence of its use and its dangerousness to the fetus. Pregnant women who wish to quit smoking should discuss the issue with their doctors. They should not use nicotine replacement options unless the doctor recommends them, nor should they take drugs such as bupropion (Zyban) that are used to treat nonpregnant individuals wishing to stop smoking. Because of the additional stress of pregnancy, it may be very difficult for women to stop smoking.

This difficulty may be compounded if they also have a dependence on alcohol or drugs and/or are experiencing family problems Treating pregnant women who are addicted to cigarettes is difficult. Physicians want women to stop using illegal drugs or harmful substances but they do not want to harm the fetus with the DETOXIFICATION process.

This seems illogical because continued drug exposure is generally more dangerous than detoxifying from drugs.

Patients with bipolar disorder are also significantly more likely to be smokers. In a study that compared patients with no mental illness to patients with bipolar disorder and other psychiatric diagnoses, published in a 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that patients with bipolar disorder had very high rates of smoking.

About 69 percent were current smokers. Among the population with no mental illness, only 22.5 percent were current smokers.

The bipolar respondents also apparently had the greatest difficulty with smoking cessation. They had the lowest quit rates of smoking of all the populations, or 16.6 percent.

The quit rate for individuals with no mental illness was 42.5 percent. Interestingly, the smoking quit rate was also higher for patients with other psychiatric diagnoses, such as panic disorder (41.4 percent), major depression (38.1 percent), and dysthymia, a form of depression (37.0 percent).

It may be uniquely difficult for patients with bipolar disorder to stop smoking, although they should certainly try. They are at risk for the same illnesses as others who are chronic tobacco users, such as LUNG CANCER and EMPHYSEMA.