Pregnant Smokers A Sad Part Of Our Cigarettes Culture | CigarettesBox.Com Tobacco News

Catalog

Pregnant Smokers A Sad Part Of Our Cigarettes Culture

One of the most worrisome health concerns in Tennessee is the high percentage of residents who continue to smoke. But the most recent data from the 2011 Tennessee Women’s Health Report Card reveals an even more disturbing phenomenon: the large number of women who continue to smoke cigarettes during pregnancy.

While the percentage of pregnant Tennesseans who smoke cigarettes has actually declined slightly over the past five years, the latest comprehensive data available from 2009 show that nearly one of five expectant mothers, or 18.4 percent, smoked while pregnant.

The smoking cigarettes habit is particularly pronounced among Tennessee’s white population. Health Department statistics show that 21.4 percent of white pregnant women smoke cigarettes — that’s more than twice the rate (10.3 percent) for black pregnant women in the state. Among Hispanics, 2.4 percent smoke cigarettes during their pregnancies.

The health problems associated with smoking cigarettes are by now obvious. But the damage pregnant smokers do to themselves is nothing to the potential for lifelong harm to the child they carry.

Statistically, the children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy are more likely to be born premature, more likely to suffer from low birth weight and to have respiratory problems. Studies have even shown a correlation between the smoking cigarettes behavior of mothers and their children’s subsequent lack of success in school.

The continuing problem of pregnant smokers has not occurred in a vacuum. Such behaviors begin early and are part of a wider cheap cigarettes culture.

A study from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine has found that Tennessee has the dubious distinction of ranking at the top of the pile among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in its rate of illegal buy cigarettes sales to teens. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that Tennessee spends less than almost any other state on programs that either prevent young people from developing a cigarette habit or helping those already addicted to quit.

Little wonder, then, that more than a quarter of Tennessee high school students are already smokers, and that more than 8,000 more teens become regular smokers each year.

Those figures need to change. But that won’t happen unless the culture that encourages that habit itself changes.

Taking personal responsibility is the first step in kicking any bad habit, to be sure. But that doesn’t mean the wider society doesn’t have a role to play.

Changing attitudes about smoking cigarettes requires a long-range strategy of smoking cigarettes prevention programs for young people and smoking cigarettes cessation plans for those who have already acquired the habit — and that help doesn’t come cheap. Last year, Tennessee spent approximately $10 million on such programs. The CDC calculates that Tennessee should be spending at least three times that amount at a minimum — but the agency’s upper annual recommendation is far higher: $89 million.

If state lawmakers are serious about this issue, they will need to adequately fund smoking cigarettes prevention and cessation programs. Such a commitment would not only improve Tennesseans’ overall general health, but it would also represent the single most fiscally responsible investment this state could make.

Other cigarettes news and tobacco market events you can find at links bellow:

   • CigarettesHouse.Com Tobacco News

   • Cheap Cigarettes & Tobacco News

   • CigarettesBox.Com Cigarettes News