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Continuing care: a new post-partum program
Now there’s a post-partum smoking prevention program to help ensure mothers continue their smoking cessation efforts and don’t relapse once the baby is born. The Alliance received a special grant from TUPCF to develop the program, available to new mothers in pediatricians’ offices.

The initiative is an extension of the 5A’s interventions to reduce tobacco use during pregnancy. Intervention in the pediatrician’s office includes brief messages given by the physician based on Prochaska’s stages of change model, information about the negative effects of smoking on infants and children, cessation counseling, and gifts.

The 5A’s approach has increased cessation rates by at least 30% and is as effective with ethnic minority women, notably African-American mothers, as with White women.

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