A smart investment in a smoke-free start

Every day in the Netherlands, 28 children are born who were already exposed to harmful tobacco smoke in the womb. They did not choose this and cannot protect themselves from it. For many (expectant) parents, however, quitting smoking is difficult: smoking is a serious addiction. Researchers Linda van der Spek and Jasper Been from Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital and the Trimbos Institute investigated how support for quitting can be made more appealing and how parents can be helped to persevere.

In England, it has already been shown that gift vouchers can double the chances of successfully quitting smoking. “This presents an opportunity for the Netherlands as well to improve the health of multiple generations,” says Jasper Been, paediatrician and neonatologist at Sophia Children’s Hospital. “With a relatively simple addition to existing coaching programmes.” In their most recent study, co-funded by Healthy Start, Jasper and Linda—together with key stakeholders such as policymakers from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS), the National Health Care Institute, health insurers, parents, coaches and other healthcare professionals—explored the opportunities and barriers to implementing gift vouchers in Dutch practice. “Parents indicate that the reward is not a miracle cure, but a motivating incentive,” says Van der Spek. Relapse can still occur even with incentive-based support, but a smoke-free pregnancy already delivers substantial health benefits for the child. “This contributes to a strong start in life and reduces socioeconomic health inequalities from the very beginning.”

This project makes a major contribution to Healthy Start’s ambition to reduce inequality of opportunity by ensuring an optimal, healthy start for every child. Read here more about this ambition.

The insights and recommendations from this research are presented in this policy brief.

View here the policy brief (in Dutch)

This study is a collaboration between Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Trimbos Institute and TU Delft, and was made possible by Convergence Healthy Start, Smarter Choices for Better Health, and Gezonde Start.

Read more about this research: www.rookvrijestart.nl/onderzoek

In the media (in Dutch)

For more information, reach out to Jasper