Consultations with the pediatrician may be an opportunity for parents to initiate a program to quit smoking, this is could have a huge impact not only on their own health but the health of their children, experts say.
(Reuters Health) – About one out of every four parents with small children responds to interventions to help them quit smoking, which is slightly better than the one in five parents who would quit without any special help, according to a new study.
Researchers say the results should encourage pediatricians to take advantage of their frequent encounters with parents, and try to get them to start a smoking cessation program.
“Because (pediatricians) can make use of the teachable moment of a child’s vulnerability to tobacco smoke, they may provide added benefit to helping this group of smokers quit,” said lead author Dr. Jonathan Winickoff, a professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Winickoff and his colleagues combined the results of 18 different studies of smoking cessation programs aimed at more than 7,000 parents.
The studies included either medications, counseling or self-help materials, or some combination of the different approaches to quitting.
Most of the studies included an intervention in the hospital, a well-baby clinic or a pediatrician’s office.
The 18 studies followed parents for anywhere between several months and more than a year, and measured whether those who received the smoking interventions were more likely to quit than parents who didn’t get any additional… continue reading
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