Public Health: Addressing Smoking Effects in Pregnancy

This presentation explores the significant public health issue of smoking during pregnancy, examining its adverse effects on both the mother and the developing fetus. It begins by outlining the problem, emphasizing the increased risks of premature birth, organ damage, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The presentation delves into the causes, including maternal age, socioeconomic factors, and education levels, supported by a literature review highlighting studies on fetal growth retardation and secondhand smoke exposure. It identifies available community resources, such as smoking cessation programs, and focuses on the need to educate less educated, low-income, and Black pregnant women. The presentation then describes the application of behaviorism and cognitivism as learning theories and outlines a specific planning process involving counseling, alternative methods, and support groups. Teaching goals focus on educating about tobacco risks and encouraging cessation. The evaluation of the teaching experience discusses what went well and what challenges were faced, such as economic constraints and attendance issues. The presentation concludes with suggestions for improving future interventions, such as adjusting class schedules to accommodate participants' needs.

Effects of Smoking During Pregnancy
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

Introduction
• The smoking is injurious to health specially in pregnant women.
• It affects in child birth such as premature birth, defective organs like lungs and
brain even the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
• In US, the prevalence of smoking in pregnant women is very high.
• This presentation discusses the effect of smoking on pregnant women in selected
group and how this can be prevented, the planning process to educate the
community and the outcomes of this learning.

Problem statement of smoking during pregnancy
• The smoking causes pre-mature birth,
developmental damage of organs like
cleft lips, cleft palate or both also lungs
and brain.
• The babies have high risk on Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
• Smoking risks are increased in first
trimester than second and third. Study
reported 6.1% of maternal smoking
during pregnancy(MSDP) and 11.8%
secondhand smoking exposure(SHS).

Cause
• The reason of this event includes maternal age, dose and duration of smoking,
socio-economic environment, and education level.
• Socio-demographic experience, family background, behavior of the members
and ethnic status prevent the smoking in pregnancy in some cases.

Literature review
• The study revealed that, smoking during pregnancy retards the fetal growth and
increases the risk of delivering the baby with low weight and pre mature often leads to
fetal death approximately 25% to 50% (Siu, 2015)
• Another study reported that many pregnant women still smoke including12.3% in US
(Joubert et al., 2016)

Literature review
• The researcher suggested that smoking inhibits fetal lung development thereby
decreased the pulmonary function of the infant (Spindle & Mcevoy, 2016).
• The article showed that secondhand smoking increases the risk of miscarriage by
11% (Pineles, Park & Samet, 2014).

Available resources and their efficiency
• The resources available for smokers and their families to quit from smoking
smoke-free women. It provides information and resources for abandoning smoking
for pregnant and non-pregnant women.
• Another is Become an Ex: for pregnant and post partum exposures. This is made by
American Legacy Foundation to quit smoking for pregnant women.
• The another available foundations are American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists: Smoking Cessation External. It offers smoking cessation resources
for patients as well as providers. They use alternative forms of nicotine such as e-
cigarettes and vapine.

Selected group and necessity of educating that group
• The study reported that the less educated, low income and black pregnant
women are more susceptible to smoking during pregnancy.
• The need of selecting this community is to increase awareness , prohibition
of smoking during pregnancy.
• The study shows that the prevalence of smoking is higher in low income,
black pregnant women as they lack proper education, they don’t know the
adverse effect of smoking during pregnancy. Hence, there is an increased
necessity of educating these group in this context (Drake, Driscoll &
Mathews, 2016).

Identification and description of learning theories
• The first learning theory that will proceed to train this community is
behaviorism. This process is based on attitudes that are gathered
through conditioning. It primarily depends on environmental factors
that trigger to change the behavior in people (Aliakbari et al., 2015).
• Another learning theory includes cognitivism. Conginitivism is the
process of learning that aims mental processes. It means people
perception, interpretation and learning to solve any problem and direct
their responsiveness towards one stimulus (Reedy, 2015).

Appropriateness to the learners
• The environmental conditions that
involves in this targeted community
are racial discrimination, socio-
economic status of the black
American compared to others vary
gradually(Kendzor et al, 2014).
• The attitudes, perceptions about
smoking of black pregnant women
were wrong in pregnancy. They
have less education rates compared
to other Americans. They have less
idea about the harmful effects of
smoking and their outcomes on
infant.

Specific planning process
• Counseling- For implementing the purpose ,counseling should be done to
literate the people.
• Alternative measurement- alternative technique must be implemented to
avoid the smoking. Such available method is providing nicotine gum to
the women to prevent active smoking.
• Support group- Support group is another process that can be executed to
educate people in this context (Cahill & Lancester, 2014)

Teaching goals
• Educate them about the risk factors of tobacco and their harmful effects on
their child.
• To actively cease from smoking cigarette.

Evaluation of teaching experience
• At the time of teaching, the women were open -minded to the fact that were
discussed. They accepted the proposed ideas and intended to perform those in
their everyday life.
• The people show eagerness to listen what was learnt to them about the topic.
• Moreover, they all realized the risk of this major issue which is increasing day
by day.

Evaluation of experience
• The process of teaching was not smooth as the people faced difficulties in
performing.
• They confronted distressing experience while giving up smoking.
• Another most important issue was few of them abandoned their efforts after few
days of teaching process.
• Since the economic status was not good for those in society, they have to earn
money of their own. Hence they have irregular attendance during the classes.

Advancement of the teaching process
• If this topic is again cultured on later on, the first thing that would
be changed is ensuring their appearance in classes. For this, the
class time needs to be shifted from morning to evening so that the
women are able to attend the class after their work.

Conclusion
• From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the populations of low
income, less educated, black pregnant women have higher chances of
smoking during pregnancy.
• For this, the support group is to be implemented who helps these people to
avoid the smoking in the time of pregnancy. Behavioral education should
be started to increase awareness and to know about ill effects of this
situation.

References
Aliakbari, F., Parvin, N., Heidari, M., & Haghani, F. (2015). Learning theories application in nursing
education. Journal of education and health promotion, 4.
Cahill, K., & Lancaster, T. (2014). Workplace interventions for smoking cessation. Cochrane database of systematic
reviews, (2)..
Drake, P., Driscoll, A. K., & Mathews, T. J. (2018). Cigarette smoking during pregnancy: United States, 2016..
Joubert, B. R., Felix, J. F., Yousefi, P., Bakulski, K. M., Just, A. C., Breton, C., ... & Küpers, L. K. (2016). DNA
methylation in newborns and maternal smoking in pregnancy: genome-wide consortium meta-analysis. The
American Journal of Human Genetics, 98(4), 680-696.
Kendzor, D. E., Businelle, M. S., Reitzel, L. R., Rios, D. M., Scheuermann, T. S., Pulvers, K., & Ahluwalia, J. S. (2014).
Everyday discrimination is associated with nicotine dependence among African American, Latino, and White
smokers. nicotine & tobacco research, 16(6), 633-640.
Pineles, B. L., Park, E., & Samet, J. M. (2014). Systematic review and meta-analysis of miscarriage and maternal
exposure to tobacco smoke during pregnancy. American journal of epidemiology, 179(7), 807-823.
Reedy, G. B. (2015). Using cognitive load theory to inform simulation design and practice. Clinical Simulation in
Nursing, 11(8), 355-360.
Siu, A. L. (2015). Behavioral and pharmacotherapy interventions for tobacco smoking cessation in adults,
including pregnant women: US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statement. Annals of internal
medicine, 163(8), 622-634.
Spindel, E. R., & McEvoy, C. T. (2016). The role of nicotine in the effects of maternal smoking during pregnancy on
lung development and childhood respiratory disease. Implications for dangers of e-cigarettes. American
journal of respiratory and critical care medicine, 193(5), 486-494.