Smokin' Mommas: Does social support work? [abstract]

Abstract

Background: Smoking during pregnancy is harmful to mothers and infants. Women continue smoking during pregnancy due to external stressors and lack of support. A randomized controlled smoking cessation trial called Baby BEEP (BB) was implemented for low-income pregnant women. The intervention group received nurse-delivered telephone social support to help lower the amount of stress in these women's lives. Methods: 695 pregnant women were recruited from 21 rural Missouri Women, Infant and Children Nutritional Supplement Program (WIC) clinics. A sub-set of African-American (Af. Am.) women (n = 25, 3.6%) were used for this study. Eleven of these women were randomly assigned to the intervention group and the other fourteen women were randomized to the control group. The purpose of this sub-analysis is to determine if the nurse-delivered telephone social support intervention worked for low-income Af. Am. women. Quantitative data was analyzed from three face-to-face, nurse read, interviews (Baseline [T1], late pregnancy [T2], and 6-weeks post-delivery [T3]). Qualitative data from field notes and telephone logs also informed the results. Results: Overall the intervention group scored better on the stress and depression instruments than the Af. Am. control group and overall sample. The Af. Am. intervention group was less depressed and stressed than both the overall population and the Af. Amer. control group. However, there was no difference in smoking rates. Implications: The analysis of these data supports that Af. Am. women in the intervention group did respond well to the extra offered social support during pregnancy, which could result in better parenting.