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Success: Wood County Cuts Smoking Rate in Half
Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune, July 5, 2006. Article excerpted with permission.

SMOKING FOR TWO
It was hardly a fact of which to be proud. Of Ohio’s total population, 26.2% were smokers in 2000, which was already slightly ahead of the U.S. figure of 23.2% for that year, according to the Behavioral Risk Factors Survey.

But at the same time, a whopping 48% of the population served by the Wood County Health Department were smokers.

Staff at local agencies was dismayed. That’s because they are aware of the appallingly dangerous consequences of smoking to the general population and even more to infants whose mothers or their partners smoke.

Women who smoke while pregnant, says health department prenatal clinic facilitator Renee Bayes, RN, have:
- An 82% higher chance of miscarriage
- A higher chance of premature delivery
- Smaller birth weights
- A 52% higher chance of their babies dying of SIDs

The problem, it seemed to Bayes and her co-facilitator at the health department, Kathy Ferrell, was that too few people were aware of these shocking statistics or otherwise motivated to change their behavior.

With the help of a modest $6,000 share of an $835,000 grant awarded to the Northwest Ohio Strategic Alliance for Tobacco Control, the health department set out to tackle that 48% pregnant smokers figure.

Starting in 2002, the health department’s prenatal clinic put into action a smoking cessation war plan of sorts for pregnant women.

The results have been startling. Just four years later, the rate of pregnant women smoking has plummeted form 48% to 22%, “which is beyond our wildest dreams,” Bayes enthused.

“We receive our ($6,000) funding every year. We use that for a baby item giveaway to clients who are coming to the health department’s prenatal clinic,” said Bayes. Prenatal clinics are held two times a month, and a drawing is held at every clinic.

“Sometimes we give away small items like blankets and baby wipes. Sometimes bigger items like cribs, strollers or high chairs. Since the folks are all low-income, it really makes a difference to them.”
Along with the baby item giveaways, Ferrell and Bayes take their pregnant moms as well as the women’s partners and family members through the 5A’s smoking cessation program.

No Cheating Here
Human nature being what it is, the prenatal clinic has a carbon monoxide reader on site, which tells the CO level in a person’s blood.

“It’s part of the routine prenatal care if they’re a smoker,” said Bayes. “Nobody’s ever refused to breathe. Some are really excited. They ask, ‘Can I breathe into it?’ It’s kind of like a breathalyzer.”
The clinic staff can point out some pretty scary chemicals that are found in cigarette smoke. Among the 4,000 chemicals are 43 known carcinogens, some of them toxic agents with industrial uses.

Imagine feeding your baby acetone, used in nail polish and varnish removers; arsenic, found in rat poison and insecticide; nitric acid, which produces fertilizers; or phenols, used to make disinfectants for floors, garbage cans and toilets.

When you smoke, says Bayes, that’s really what you’re doing: “It’s like mixing all those things and drinking them.”

Bowling Green’s Deborah Jordan, grant project specialist for the Hospital Council of Northwest Ohio, has nothing but praise for the work Ferrell and Bayes are doing.

“They are two wonderful nurses that counsel these clients,” Jordan said, “and they are doing awesome work with very positive results.”

Bayes is aware that their results are “very impressive to the Alliance. I do know our starting rate, 48%, was pretty high in comparison with other counties. We were above the state average.”

Wood County’s prenatal clinic generally sees people between the ages of 18 and 34. Clients visit the clinic through their 34th week of pregnancy, and then transfer to their OB-GYN doctors and nurse-midwives.
One subfocus of the Alliance grant is to reduce tobacco use among minority populations. During 2005, the prenatal clinic at Wood County worked with a total of 116 clients. Of that number, 87.9% were Caucasian and 9.4%, were Hispanic.

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