Are you a pregnant woman wanting to quit smoking?
Our maternity department at Whipps Cross Hospital has launched its new tobacco dependence service for pregnant women wanting to quit smoking.
This is the maternity unit’s in-house stop smoking service which offers pregnant women behavioural therapy alongside nicotine replacement therapy. The service is a result of a collaboration with Quite Right Waltham Forest.
The aim of the service is to support women to have a smoke free pregnancy and have a smoke free home following the delivery.
The service has been set up following guidance from the Saving Babies Lives Care bundle with the aim to reduce smoking in pregnancy. We’ll achieve this by offering all women CO monitoring to identify smokers and refer them to stop smoking services. It is also part of the NHS Long Term Plan with the aim to make England a smoke free society.
Women who live in a home where someone smokes are also at an increased risk, so as part of this service we are also offering additional support to family members to seek support from local stop smoking services.
How to access the service
Pregnant women that would like to use the service can be referred to the service by any health care professional or they can choose to self-refer at any point in their pregnancy.
If you would like more information or to make a referral please contact Jozan -Tobacco Dependence midwife at Whipps Cross via email or Quit Right Waltham Forest on 02078828230 / 08001691943 or visit: www.quitrightwf.org
Did you know that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of having a miscarriage, pre- term birth, a small for gestational age baby, a baby with heart defects, still birth and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)?
