Door-to-door program helps quit smoking

PHILADELPHIA, March 5 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers found offering door-to-door counseling helped new moms cut down on smoking.

Brad Collins of Temple University in Philadelphia and colleagues offered Philadelphia Family Rules for Establishing Smoke-free Homes -- a 16-week intensive one-on-one counseling program.

Previous research had found 40 percent of new moms in North Philadelphia either smoked currently or had smoked late into their pregnancies, and were increasing their babies' risks of sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, lung or ear infections.

"Our counselors explicitly demonstrated the steps one can take to create a smoke-free home and coached smokers through those steps taking into account individual and family-level factors that could either facilitate or undermine the behavior change process," Collins said in a statement.

A group of 229 new mothers were randomly assigned to a self-help program or behavioral counseling through the program. The mothers who received behavioral counseling reported smoking an average of two cigarettes per day indoors -- vs. five cigarettes per day reported by those in the self-help group.

Children of the mothers receiving behavioral counseling also had lower levels of urine cotinine -- a biomarker showing secondhand smoke exposure.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Nicotine and Tobacco Research.