Smoking pregnant teens need more understanding: UPEI researchers

Christiane LeBlanc, 22, of Charlottetown, smoked in the first half of her pregnancy when she was a teenager. She realized people were looking at her and she didn’t like the perceived treatment, LeBlanc said.
“If you’re young and pregnant, it’s a big deal – It’s a lot of stress.”
She held her squirming, two-year-old son, Miguel, in her lap.
She decided to quit for the rest of the pregnancy.
Miguel was born in February, 2006.
LeBlanc, along with other smoking, pregnant teens, took part in a recent study done by researchers at UPEI.
Smoking gives young pregnant teens a place of their own, said Colleen MacQuarrie, one of the researchers and an assistant professor and instructor at the university.
MacQuarrie and Lorraine Begley, of the BC Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health, are on a research team for the study. Begley is at UPEI to do the research.
“They live very challenging lives,” MacQuarrie said.
Begley said it’s a very mobile population.
The idea for the project came about in the mid-1990s, she added.
“The idea for research with pregnant adolescents emerged from a previous research project.”
There was a smoke-free homes project sponsored by the P.E.I. Tobacco Reduction Alliance.
Various groups supported that project and Begley was invited to be the coordinator. Then there was a look at the next step, said MacQuarrie.
“The gap in effective programming for adolescents who are smoking.”
The research team put together the design, which would include recruitment of pregnant smoking teens, several group sessions as well as home visits to the participants.
The two women chose girls who were 14-19 years old. They had to have smoked as a pregnant teen, although some had already given birth by the time the project was begun.
Begley gave the girls the choice of keeping a journal or a scrapbook, both of which would be collected later.
There were also collages made by participants.
The project began in 2005, with recruitment starting in 2007. All the data was collected by the summer of2008. Now, the team is analyzing what it all means. Researchers include Dianne Boswell, P.E.I. Health’s reproductive care coordinator; Janet Bryanton of the school of nursing at UPEI; Billie Jean Flynn, a community researcher with the government of P.E.I.; Rosemary Herbert, of the school of nursing at UPEI; Marilyn Norton, of the CHANCES family resource centre; Lida Shaffer, a primary care coordinator with the P.E.I. government; Philip Smith, a psychology professor at UPEI; and Paul MacDonald, the chair of health studies and gerontology at the University of Waterloo.
While conclusions are being drawn, the team has made some startling discoveries. One of the most important is participants used smoking as an excuse to take a break from the stress of their lives, as pregnant teens, making it that much harder to quit.
LeBlanc has just moved into a small, sparsely decorated, basement apartment where she lives with her son.
She first heard about the project from a CHANCES coordinator. She wanted to get more information about smoking while pregnant, so decided to become involved, she said.
There were other incentives as well.
“There’s a little fee they give you.”
Now the project has wrapped up the first stage, she and a couple of other participants have gone to see an advisory committee to provide ideas for upcoming projects. LeBlanc was encouraged by the common experiences she shared with other participants, she said.
“We had the same pressures while smoking and pregnant.”
The team has also concluded current stop-smoking campaigns are not working because they are too narrowly focussed and don’t consider pressures pregnant teens face as well as their lifestyles and backgrounds.
“Often they come from homes that are marked by marginalization,” MacQuarrie said.
“It’s like the water they swim in.”