In an effort to determine whether financial incentives could be effective in smoking cessation, hospitals in France will offer pregnant women up to €300 ($342) in vouchers if they agree to kick the habit.
This follows a previous study in the United Kingdom which found that only one in five pregnant women successfully quits smoking even if offered a reward.
Now, the public hospital system in the city of Paris and surrounding suburbs is testing the efficacy of financial rewards, with 17 hospitals agreeing to participate in the three-year trial.
Expectant mothers will be given €20 ($22.81) for every doctor's visit in which they can prove they have not been smoking.
The participants must be over the age of 18, at least four months pregnant, and smoked or used to smoke five cigarettes a day. Most importantly, the women must have a strong desire to quit, researchers say.
Every doctor's visit, the women will have to undergo urine and saliva tests to determine their current nicotine levels.
The women will also see a specialist during prenatal appointments who will help them with strategies that support lifestyle change.
If the participants attend all sessions with the specialist, they will receive an additional voucher that could be redeemed at department stores.
Studies have shown that smoking during pregnancy reaps harmful effects. A study published in April revealed that smoking may chemically alter the DNA of babies.
Specifically, researchers found spots in the blood samples of newborn babies with mothers who smoked.
Half of these spots were linked to specific genes that influence asthma, birth defects including cleft lips and cleft palates, and the development of the nervous system and lungs.
Another study in 2014 found that fetal exposure to cigarette smoke from mothers who did it during pregnancy led to a 45 percent higher risk of developing asthma.
For infants who were exposed to second-hand smoke, the risk for asthma was 23 percent, while the risk for eczema was 26 percent higher.
Meanwhile, France's trial on financial incentives is not the first of its kind. In 2015, researchers in Glasgow published the findings of a similar trial, revealing that financial rewards were indeed effective in helping expectant mothers quit smoking.
Of the more than 600 women in the study, 22.5 percent of those offered with financial rewards stopped the habit, while 8.6 percent who met with specialists quit smoking.
"I think the reason why it worked was because that type of reward really added to the motivation that many of them already had," says Linda Bauld, a researcher in the Glasgow study.
Whether or not the incentive in France will work, we shall wait and see.
Photo: Ricardo Liberato | Flickr
