KEY POINTS:
A fifth of Pacific Island women continue to smoke during pregnancy, a new study has found.
The research - part of the Pacific Islands Families study being carried out by Auckland University of Technology researchers - found that approximately 20 per cent of Pacific Island mothers living in New Zealand reported smoking during the last trimester of their pregnancy.
Associate Professor Janis Paterson, co-director of the study, said the results showed the smokers were at least twice as likely to have maternal asthma and to deliver an infant with low birth weight.
Infants born to light-to-moderate smokers on average weighed 244 grams less and those born to heavy smokers weighed 278 grams less than babies of non-smokers, who had a mean birth weight of 3.636 kg.
The study, the first longitudinal research into the health of Pacific Islanders, has been following 1398 infants and their mothers for the past six years.
Other findings from the study included the discovery that 43 per cent of health problems among 6-week-old infants were related to breathing difficulties - a significant factor that was related to maternal cigarette smoking during the last trimester.
"Smoking is preventable, yet continues to have negative consequences for mothers and their offspring," the study said.
Ministry of Health data found 28.5 per cent of Pacific Island women smoked, compared with 25.5 per cent of all New Zealand women, in 2002.
Professor Paterson said the trend appeared to be continuing in spite of Government-driven quit-smoking programmes and public health advertising.
"Whether or not there are programmes that are really pertinent to Pacific mothers is something we probably need to think about."
Iutita Rusk, the Heart Foundation's manager of Pacific health, said the findings were not a surprise. She said the foundation's Pacific Islands Heartbeat programme was indirectly having an impact on reducing smoking rates in the community.
The programme has trained more than 150 Smokefree community advocates and about 400 quit-smoking counsellors.
It has also had success through its Health Promoting Churches - an important avenue, said Mrs Rusk, as around 84 per cent of the Pacific population are affiliated to a church.
"It seems to be the strategic avenue to actually make things happen and for change to happen."
