SMS Scheduled Gradual Reduction Text Messages to Help Pregnant Smokers Quit

Background and Significance:

Smoking during pregnancy is associated with a plethora of negative effects on the fetus, including preterm birth, low birth weight, fetal growth restriction, placental abruption, fetal/neonatal death, sudden infant death syndrome, learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder. Quitting smoking improves the health of the fetus, and if the cessation is maintained, the health of the mother and other family members living in the household. Yet despite the commonly known evidence of the harms, as much as half of women who smoke continue to do so when becoming pregnant.

Cognitive-behavioral cessation interventions for pregnant smokers have had modest success with quit rates that range from 10 to 30%. Interventions have included face-to-face counseling or telephone counseling, neither of which is easily disseminable in the health care setting. Using SMS (Short Message Service) text messaging to deliver counseling has the potential for efficacy and widespread dissemination. The only trial that used text messaging to target cessation during pregnancy found null results. Thus, a counseling intervention via SMS texting might not be potent enough to promote cessation; pregnant smokers might need more assistance. Scheduled gradual reduction (SGR) might be an effective strategy to supplement counseling. SGR first assesses smokers' patterns, then over the course of three or four weeks, gradually reduces the number of cigarettes smoked by lengthening the time interval between cigarettes. Thus, smokers might be prompted to smoke at a time when they do not want to smoke and might not be prompted to smoke at a time when they want to smoke. The smoking becomes unlinked from the cues (psychological and behavioral), and smokers must work through their times of craving (physiological). Therefore, when cigarettes get fewer and fewer in the last two weeks, smokers should have an easier time giving them up completely.

Knowing whether an SMS text-messaging intervention plus a SMS text-based counseling intervention helps pregnant smokers quit could significantly improve the maternal and fetal health of any pregnant woman with a cell phone with texting ability. Most previous efficacious interventions that have helped pregnant smokers quit are not easily disseminated. A texting intervention could impact many pregnant women's health given the reach and disseminability.

Design: