Unique influences of pregnancy and anticipated parenting on cigarette smoking: results and implications of a within-person, between-pregnancy study
Not all pregnant individuals want to become parents and “parenting intention” can also vary within individuals during different pregnancies. Nevertheless, the potential impact of parenting intention on health-related behavior during pregnancy has been heavily underexplored. In this study, we employe...
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Published in | Archives of women's mental health Vol. 27; no. 2; pp. 301 - 308 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Vienna
Springer Vienna
01.04.2024
Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Not all pregnant individuals want to become parents and “parenting intention” can also vary within individuals during different pregnancies. Nevertheless, the potential impact of parenting intention on health-related behavior during pregnancy has been heavily underexplored. In this study, we employed a within-person between pregnancy design to estimate the effect of parenting-specific influences on smoking, separate from pregnancy-specific and individual-level influences. We quantified within-mother differences in smoking during pregnancies of infants they reared (
n
= 84) versus pregnancies of infants they placed for adoption at birth (
n
= 65) using multivariate mixed-effects Poisson regression models. Mean cigarettes/day declined as the pregnancy progressed regardless of whether infants were reared or placed. However, participants smoked fewer cigarettes/day during reared pregnancies. Relative to “adopted” pregnancies, smoking during “reared” pregnancies was lower by 24%, 41%, and 54% in first (95% CI 0.64–0.90;
p
= 0.001), second (95% CI 0.48–0.72;
p
< 0.001), and third trimesters (95% CI 0.36–0.59;
p
< 0.001), respectively, independent of between-pregnancy differences in maternal age, fetal sex, parity, and pregnancy complications. Female sex and nulliparity were protective. Parenting intention was associated with a protective effect on pregnancy smoking independent of pregnancy-specific influences and individual characteristics. Failure to consider the impact of parenting intention on health-related behavior during pregnancy could perpetuate an unrealistic expectation to “
do what’s best for the baby
” and stigmatize women with unintended or unwanted pregnancies. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1434-1816 1435-1102 1435-1102 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s00737-023-01396-z |