London – Pregnant women are more than twice as likely to quit smoking if they are offered shopping vouchers as part of a treatment plan, according to a study.
Researchers from Glasgow and Stirling universities divided 612 pregnant smokers into two groups. Half were offered only advice and nicotine replacement therapy to help them stop smoking.
Half were offered up to £400 worth of vouchers to be used at stores including Argos, Boots and Toys R Us if they had the advice and treatment and quit while pregnant.
According to a report in the BMJ, 69 women quit from the group offered shopping vouchers, and 26 from the other group – 23 per cent and 9 percent respectively. The results were confirmed by urine and saliva testing.
After 12 months, 15 percent of women who were offered financial incentives remained off cigarettes compared with4 percent in the other group.
The report says that widening the incentive scheme could produce public health benefits ‘as important as vaccines’. But critics are likely to claim ‘bribery’ is being used to get mothers to maximise the health of their children.
In the UK around 5,000 babies a year die in the womb or shortly after birth from mothers smoking in pregnancy.
Daily Mail