The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is planning to conduct a randomized clinical trial of a smoking cessation intervention program aimed at pregnant women. Pregnancy is often a time when many women who smoke seriously consider stopping smoking cessation intervention available to practicing physicians is crucial. Moreover prenatal care consists of a regular schedule of visits which would provide an ideal opportunity for an effective smoking cessation intervention. In addition, if women are encouraged and assisted to quit smoking during pernancy, a good proportion will remain non-smokers after delivery and may remain nonsmokers for life. This randomized trial will be conducted in private physicians offices and will enroll a total of 1000 pregnant women. To avoid problems with contamination of controls and to make the trial easier to conduct in private practice setting, entire practice settings will be andomized to either the intervention or control group. Verification of smoking essation/reduction will be obtained through self-report and the biochemical marker, rinary cotinine. The goals of this pilot study are to develop a multifaceted, multimedia smoking intervention program that is aimed at assisting pregnant women to quit smoking. This intervention will be both economically feasible and professionally acceptable for physicians in private practice to implement as part of the routine prenatal care. Women who smoke during pregnancy are eligible to participate in this trial. Informed consent will be sought at the first prenatal visit for all eligible women. The smoking intervention will be offered as part of a woman's routine prenatal care package. The results of this trial will provide valuable information about the efficacy of the smoking interventions tested. If the interventions prove successful in assisting pregnant omen to quit smoking and prove to be easily administered in private practice setting the program will be made available to all practicing physicians across the U.S.
