Epidemiological investigation to define the awareness of women on the hazards of smoking and drinking alcohol before and during pregnancy in Poland

Following a major survey undertaken in 382 maternity hospitals, 2280 post-partum women completed lifestyle questionnaires regarding smoking and drinking together with corresponding clinical data concerning the pregnancy. This was performed over 24 hours in 2009 through the Polish State Sanitary Inspectorate as part of the EU's ‘Warsaw Declaration' policy of removing health disparities. Questionnaires were based on the PRAMS-CDC model and results analysed by Chi-squared and Cramer's V. Findings revealed that women unaware of small-scale drinking hazards still continued smoking (15%) and didn't limit smoking (50%) compared to those aware about alcohol (4%, 24% respectively). Also the more cigarettes smoked (>13 packets/month), the greater (45%) was the unawareness of high alcohol consumption danger compared to women smoking less (21% unawareness). Further links observed between awareness of high drinking and smoking were; 1:3 smoking women unaware on high alcohol consumption effects are also unaware of smoking hazards but conversely only 1:100 who know about high alcohol dangers are unaware of the perils of smoking. The former group also showed 54% being unaware of passive smoking harm. It was found that 7% of women who know smoking itself is harmful are unaware about passive smoking whereas 39% of women who do not know that smoking is hazardous are also unaware about passive smoking and 23% continue to smoke. In contrast, those women aware about passive smoking more frequently limit their smoking (75%) than those who are unaware (44%). An widespread educational campaign will be launched in Poland to address these problem areas.