Smoking Behavior of Recent Mothers, 18-44 Years of Age, Before and After Pregnancy: United States, 1990

Advance Data 288.  Important information has been released in a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics on the numbers of women who smoked during their pregnancy. According to the report titled, "Smoking Behavior of Recent Mothers, 18-44 Years of Age, Before and After Pregnancy: United States, 1990," of the approximately 13.7 million women in the United States in 1990 who had a baby within 5 years before the survey, 15.4 percent (or 2.1 million) smoked during most of their most recent pregnancy.

Smoking during pregnancy has been linked to a variety of adverse pregnancy outcomes--including low birthweight, spontaneous abortion, and infant death. The report defines these mothers by selected sociodemographic characteristics that have a demonstrated relationship to smoking behavior--including age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, marital status, family income, education, and place of residence.

Data Highlights:

Young mothers 18-24 years of age were more likely than older mothers 35-44 to have smoked during their pregnancies, 19.4 percent compared with 12.7 percent.

Black mothers were much less likely to have smoked during their most recent pregnancy than white mothers, 11.3 compared with 16.6 percent.

Hispanic mothers, when compared with non-Hispanic mothers had lower rates of smoking during pregnancy, 6 percent compared with 17 percent.

Keywords: smoking, pregnancy, demographics

This page last reviewed January 11, 2007