Statistics on Women's Smoking Status at Time of Delivery: England Quarter 1, 2021-22

Smoking during pregnancy can cause serious pregnancy-related health problems. These include complications during labour and an increased risk of miscarriage, premature birth, still birth, low birth-weight and sudden unexpected death in infancy.

Reducing smoking during pregnancy is one of the three national ambitions in the Tobacco Control Plan published in July 2017, which is “reducing smoking amongst pregnant women (measured at time of giving birth) to 6% by the end of 2022.

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From April 2017, the definition used in the Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF) to calculate the percentage of women who were known to be smokers at the time of delivery, changed to exclude women with unknown smoking status from the denominator. A similar change was also made to the definition for the Clinical Commissioning Group Outcome Indicator Set (CCG OIS).