Tobacco exposure among antenatal women in India: Challenges in tobacco screening & amp; cessation counselling

Indian J Med Res. 2023 Dec 12. doi: 10.4103/ijmr.ijmr_188_23. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTLinks between tobacco use and poor pregnancy outcomes are well established. Despite various tobacco control measures taken by the government, nearly 5-8 per cent of pregnant women consume tobacco in India. Antenatal check-ups are an opportunity to assess and assist women in quitting tobacco during pregnancy. This review highlights the challenges faced in identifying pregnant tobacco users and providing cessation counselling to them in a formal healthcare setup in the Indian context. For this narrative review, open access databases like PubMed and Google Scholar were searched, using the following search terms: challenges, quitting tobacco use, smokeless tobacco, pregnancy and India. Original articles published between 2010 and July 2022 were included in the English language with available free full text. Out of the thirty articles found to be eligible, seven were included in the review. Official websites of the National Health Mission and National Tobacco Control Programme were also searched to retrieve available data on health education and training material for healthcare workers: medical officers, Auxiliary Nurse and Midwives (ANMs), Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and list of tobacco cessation centres. This review identified the factors such as myths surrounding tobacco use, lack of targeted screening, inadequate training of healthcare workers and inaccessibility of cessa...
Source: The Indian Journal of Medical Research - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Source Type: research