Article published on Vapingpost - Author: Diane Cruana - Translator: The Vape Club
Amid the ongoing controversy over vaping , the first study into vaping during pregnancy, which will look at the effects of e-cigarettes on pregnant women and their unborn babies, is to be conducted in Scotland.
The UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, a network of 13 universities, will recruit several hundred women for the study, which will run next year. Researchers will look to see if vaping can help pregnant women who are trying to quit smoking kick the habit. The children will be followed until they are two years old to determine whether vaping affects their development and whether the children themselves are affected by their mothers’ smoking while they are pregnant.
Research already exists
A study published last week suggested that vaping is as bad for the cardiovascular system as smoking because it stiffens major arteries, however, critics have pointed out that nicotine stiffening arteries is not a new discovery and there are many other causes of this, such as drinking coffee.
On the other hand, a study conducted by another research organization, in the UK and the world, has shown that vaping is safer than smoking. One of the studies that we know about is the study by the Royal College of Physicians in the UK that showed that vaping is 95% safer than smoking, and the study conducted by the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in the US showed that using vape will reduce the number of deaths due to smoking by 21% and, increase life expectancy by 20%.
With the number of vapers in the UK rising to two million, Linda Bauld, professor of health policy at the University of Stirling and deputy director of the UK Centre for Drug and Alcohol Studies, points out that over the past five years, attitudes towards e-cigarettes have gone from positive to negative, which is not good news for health professionals who have rated them as one of the most effective ways to quit smoking.
The professor pointed out that efforts to help adult populations such as prisoners and pregnant women kick the deadly habit have not been enough, and that the study is the first of its kind. Bauld added that in the UK, nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs) are routinely offered to pregnant women, and in the study, several hundred women will be randomly assigned to either the treatments or e-cigarettes. Researchers will assess which is most effective in helping them quit, how safe they are, and which treatments they find most comfortable with.
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There are currently 9,900 pregnant women in the UK who are smokers who are being encouraged to use NRT products, but new guidelines have also advised midwives not to discourage them from using vaping products if they are proven to be effective in helping them quit. Many in the medical community, such as Janet Fyle, policy adviser at the Royal College of Midwives, have said further research is needed because there are currently conflicting theories that make them reluctant to recommend e-cigarettes to pregnant women, which would be a shame if they were actually beneficial.
