Pregnant smokers paid in fuel vouchers in quitting bid

West Coast District Health Board offering to pay up to $350 in petrol vouchers to get pregnant women to quit. Photo / Thinkstock

The West Coast District Health Board has offered to pay up to $350 in petrol and fuel vouchers to smoking pregnant women in a bid to get them to quit the habit.

To check they do not cheat, they will have to blow into a carbon monoxide detector once a week.

The programme has been trialled by Counties Manakau DHB with a quit rate of 65 per cent for those who stay the course. Regular quit programmes normally achieve 30 to 40 per cent success.

The West Coast DHB is not sure yet how many women will participate, so the exact cost is unclear, but the organisers point out it costs $3000 a night to look after a premature baby, and smokers are more likely to go into labour early.

Women can be referred by their midwife to smokefree counsellors in Greymouth, Hokitika or Westport.

After one week smokefree, the reward is a $50 voucher, with $25 rewards up to week 12. Mothers still smokefree two weeks after the baby's arrival - a time when some women relapse - will earn a $50 pharmacy voucher.

Smokefree services co-ordinator John Caygill said they estimated there were more than 4700 smokers on the West Coast, the second highest rate in the New Zealand.

With the new initiative, women would have "much better odds" of becoming smokefree.

The cost of the initiative was relatively low, he said.

"And this is as much about the well-being of the baby."

Project specialist planning and funding Jenni Stephenson, said existing programmes were not being cut to finance it.

Although they plan to start before Christmas, pregnant women who smoked could ask their midwife for information now, she said.

Smoking during pregnancy contributes to a higher rate of miscarriage, pre-term births, low birth rate babies, difficulties during childbirth, sudden infant death syndrome, childhood asthma and glue ear.

The payment incentive has also been trialled in Scotland.

As well as speaking to their midwife, pregnant women can phone the smoking cessation office at Grey Base Hospital, Aukati Kaipaipa or the West Coast Primary Health Organisation.

- Greymouth Star