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Smoking Cessation

ACNM is pleased to be working with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on an initiative to reach out to women of reproductive age to urge them to stop smoking.   We have created several online resources specifically for health care professionals, including midwives.

You may have seen some of the CDC?s ads for their Tips from Former Smokers Media Campaign over the past two years from the Office on Smoking and Health (http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/.) To date, thousands of smokers have been stimulated to quit, or attempt quitting, as a result of the campaign messages. See the 2014 results of the campaign.

In July, the CDC filmed and recorded more ads with actual former smokers, and they have launched a very large national media buy. One of the new ads features a woman who smoked when she was pregnant with a message to other women to help them and their babies have better health. The CDC has also created new online materials for health care professionals that can help them encourage their patients who smoke to quit.  

Below are additional resources to assist clinicians in helping their patients to quit smoking:

Updates

Risks of Electronic Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products to Pregnant Women and Women of Reproductive Age (July 2015)

View a copy of the presentation that CDC's Karilynn Rockhill delivered about tobacco cessation during pregnancy at the ACNM 60th Annual Meeting & Exhibition (June 2015)

• ACNM has adapted CDC cessation tips and messages into talking points for clinicians. As part of this collaborative project, we are helping to promote CDC practitioner resources, and get out ad messages and the 1-800-QUIT-NOW number (in Spanish as well) to patients. Midwives will be champions in helping more mothers and their children live healthier, tobacco-free lives.

Consumer Resources

• What Women Need to Know about Smoking and How to Quit

• Smoking and Women's Health: Learn the Facts from the ACNM Consumer Site, Our Moment of Truth (ourmomentoftruth.com)

• From the Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health Share with Women Series: Smoking and Women's Health: Tips on Why and How to Quit

Virtual Online Training

• Another part of the project is to promote the Virtual Online training (for CEUs) as a way to help clinicians assist patients with smoking cessation. ACNM is highlighting this great tool which focuses on patients who are pregnant or in their child-bearing years. The case-based learning uses simulated and actual patients, interactive activities and lectures, and gives providers the opportunity to interact with women of reproductive age regarding smoking cessation.

Tobacco smoking, in particular cigarette smoking, remains the leading preventable cause of death among American women and poses one of the most significant threats to public health. Midwives can make a major contribution to the long-term health of women by identifying women who smoke and providing appropriate counseling on smoking cessation. We hope we can count on our members to support this important initiative.

For tips and resources to share with clients, please visit the smoking cessation page of the ACNM consumer site, www.ourmomentoftruth.com. 

For more information, please contact the ACNM Department of Professional Practice & Health Policy at 240-485-1844 or PPHP@acnm.org.