By six months after giving birth, the group who received the longest intervention was less likely to be smoking than others, but by one year all three groups had similar smoking rates. Cigarette smoking causes a lot of problems for mother and baby, and we need to find ways to encourage women to remain non-smokers after the baby is born. It's possible that enlisting women's live-in partners as supporters will help improve smoking cessation rates for pregnant women, says McBride, who is leading a study based at Ft. Bragg, a U.S. Army base near Fayetteville, N.C., to test that idea. The final results are expected in a few years.
Many people still think breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women.
In 1987, deaths from lung cancer surpassed those from breast cancer, and the gap has been steadily widening. While men's death rate has been falling in recent years, thanks in large part to the public education campaign against smoking, women's death rate from lung cancer is still increasing. As a result, medical oncologist Dr. Jennifer Garst considers lung cancer to be a women's health issue. Not only are more young women taking up smoking and doing so at younger ages, there's also growing evidence that women are more susceptible to developing lung cancer. Possible reasons include differences in the way the sexes process the cancer-causing agents in cigarette smoke and a greater tendency for women to smoke menthol cigarettes, says Garst.