Summary

Smoking during pregnancy is associated with poorer birth outcomes.

This report is one of a series of initiatives commissioned by the National Advisory Group on Smoking and Pregnancy as part of an overall strategy to reduce smoking in pregnancy in Australia.

It presents data on pregnancy and births according to the mother’s smoking status during pregnancy for the period 2001 to 2003, using the National Perinatal Data Collection (NPDC). Data from the NPDC were available for this report from five states and territories: New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, representing 53.5% of women who gave birth in Australia in 2003. Tasmania and Queensland began collecting smoking data in 2005, so data from these jurisdictions will be available for reporting in the future.

Prevalence

The proportion of women who gave birth in 2003 and reported smoking while pregnant was 17.3% in the five states and territories.

Maternal characteristics

Smoking during pregnancy was most prevalent in teenage mothers (42.1%) and decreased with older age to 10.9% of mothers aged 35 years and older.

Of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers in these jurisdictions 52.2% reported smoking during pregnancy, compared with 15.8% of non-Indigenous mothers.

The proportion of mothers who smoked was lowest for mothers usually resident in major cities (14.0%) and increased with remoteness to 38.3% for mothers usually resident in very remote areas.

Baby outcomes

Mothers who smoked during pregnancy had higher proportions of babies with poorer perinatal outcomes than mothers who did not smoke.

In 2003, the proportion of liveborn low birthweight babies (less than 2,500 grams) of mothers who smoked was 10.6%, twice that of babies of mothers who did not smoke (5.1%).

The odds of preterm birth at less than 37 weeks gestation, was 60% higher in babies of mothers who smoked than in babies of mothers who did not smoke.

Data development

Data development for monitoring of smoking in pregnancy is being undertaken by the National Perinatal Data Development Committee (NPDDC) in collaboration with other stakeholders and with support from the National Advisory Group on Smoking and Pregnancy. The NPDDC is working towards the development of one or more standard national data elements on smoking status during pregnancy to be routinely collected.