Health promotion in pregnancy - smoking cessation course for General Practitioners

This session presents the attitudes towards smoking and reasons why people smoke, the impact of side stream smoke on non-smokers and the health effects of smoking on the fetus, neonate and infant. It progresses to define approaches and actions to support adults to cease smoking.

Learning objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Identify the most common reasons why people smoke
• Outline the impact of sidestream smoke upon non-smokers
• Describe the prevalent attitudes held about sidestream smoke
• Outline the effects of smoking on the health and development of the fetus, neonate and infant
• Describe evidence-based preventative interventions
• Outline smoking cessation promotion, approaches and actions in different situations
• Describe the model of behaviour change
• Describe evidence-based preventative interventions
• Outline tobacco dependence treatment, approaches and actions in different situations
• Describe the current model for tobacco dependence treatment in pregnancy

Smoking is a national addiction and a national killer. Smoking is uniquely harmful, causing damage not only to smokers themselves, but also to the people around them. Smoking is one of the main drivers of health inequalities in England, with the harm concentrated in more disadvantaged communities and groups. People who live in the most deprived communities are twice as likely to smoke as people who live in the least deprived areas