Young parents returning to smoking is concern for council

Young parents returning to smoking within two years of the birth of their child is a concern to the public health team at Swindon Borough Council, councillors have been told.

Caroline Little, the head of the family health team at Euclid Street, gave a briefing to members of the adults‘ and children’s overview and scrutiny committee about the nursing services provided by the council.

This includes such services as health visitor calls to families with a new child up to the age of five years old, and the family nurse partnership, which provides support to all parents under 18 and those under 25 who have been in care or under 20 with additional vulnerabilities.

Ms Little’s report said that 92.6 per cent of such families has a “smoke-free home” at the time of their baby’s birth, which is above the England national average of 89.5 per cent.

But the percentage of those mothers or fathers smoking again 18 months after their baby’s birth is 32.3 per cent. While that’s a welcome five-point drop from the 39.8 per cent of three years ago, it is, shockingly, more than twice the England national average of 14.4 per cent.

Ms Little said in response to a question from Councillor Mike Davies about what more could be done to help: “Smoking is one of the biggest challenges.

“One reason that we tend to be higher than average for demographic risk factors is that we have the extended criteria for care-experienced people.

“Smoking is very hard to break, it tends to be very much a generational behaviour, and these young people are often living at home with their parents. If they smoke themselves, if grandparents smoke as well, it can be a real challenge.”

Another councillor Carol Shelley asked whether the figures could be even higher: “How accurate is it if people are self-reporting. Could it be, say, 10 per cent higher?”

Ms Little said she didn’t think so: ”We can be confident it’s accurate. We develop such a close, intensive relationship with those families. It can be difficult to get through the door, but once we’ve established a relationship with those families, they are very open about risky behaviours.”

She added: “It’s often the case that there are many difficulties faced by these young families, and smoking is not seen as one of their main priorities.

“There is now a pathway to stopping offered directly to these families. That’s recently been put into place. The trend is starting to come down, but it needs to keep coming down.”