MAKING sure babies have the best life during pregnancy is the most important thing for mums-to-be.

But statistics show that 14.7% of pregnant women in Southampton endanger their babies by smoking.

The percentage of pregnant mums smoking in the city is higher than the national average of 11.4%.

Now Solent NHS Trust and Southampton City Council have united to launch a new programme to give young mums-to-be shopping vouchers as an incentive to quit smoking.

The idea of bribing young mums in a bid to guarantee their babies a healthy future has already been pioneered in other cities across the country.

A study in Glasgow provided evidence for the efficacy of such incentives but also made researchers acknowledge that public perceptions of paying individuals to change behaviour can be negative.

The programme that will be launched in Southampton tomorrow has received a £10,000 grant from the NHS Family Nurse Partnership. Part of the money will be used to fund the research, while another part will be spent on £20 vouchers that each of the 20 mums-to-be involved in the scheme will receive once a month if they quit smoking.

Will financial incentives help Southampton pregnant women stop smoking?

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said that raising awareness around the dangers of smoking while pregnant is a good thing and should be encouraged but “handing out taxpayers’ hard-earned cash to bribe expectant mothers should be a non-starter”.

He said: “This ridiculous idea which has been tried, and has failed, elsewhere in the country and absolutely should not be implemented here. Opening this sort of nanny state can of worms opens up all sorts of questions about where the line should be drawn - should we start paying obese people to go to the gym? We’ve got to put the responsibility back on the individual.”

The study conducted in Glasgow involved 612 pregnant women. Half of them were allocated to the financial incentive group and 306 to the control group. The study found significantly more women in the voucher group (22.5%) stopped smoking by late pregnancy (34 to 38 weeks) compared with the control group (8.6%).

However, this was only 20% of self-reported smokers who attended maternity bookings during the study. As reported by NHS, “the results may not be representative of what could be achieved in the other 80% of pregnant smokers, who may be less motivated to quit”.

Cllr Dave Shields, cabinet member for health and sustainable living at Southampton City Council, said that it is worth trying and investing in this sort of projects.

He said: “We have responsibility that public money is spent wisely on evidence-based good practice. We are aware of similar projects that have been successful somewhere else and we want to pilot this here but if it will not work we’ll stop doing it. But it’s worth investing in and trying.

“We should work on prevention. What’s the point of allowing people to have bad health and pay for treatments if we can prevent it?”

Estimates of costs to the NHS to treat mothers and their babies with problems caused by smoking during pregnancy are between £20 million and £80 million each year, according to a public health report.

The report also shows that rates of smoking are higher in poorer communities in Southampton, exacerbating health inequalities in the population.

“If we did nothing and mums continue to smoke the babies couldn’t benefit. There would actually be a chance that babies’ health would be harmed and we’ll have to pay for treatments,” Cllr Shields said.

Smoking during pregnancy has been proved to have life-threatening consequences on babies and it is considered to be the cause of more than 2,000 premature births and 5,000 miscarriages every year.

Despite its negative effects, Southampton mums-to-be seem to struggle to ditch their addiction.

Figures show that 23.1% of Southampton’s most deprived mothers are recorded as smoking at their first midwifery booking, compared to 5.3% amongst the least deprived.

Diane Henty, family nurse supervisor, said: “We know that pregnancy is a good motivator for lots of forms of behavioural change. However, we also know that smoking is very addictive and that many young mums in Southampton do smoke during pregnancy. This study is just one of the many ways we are trying to improve the health of mums-to-be and unborn babies in Southampton.”

Once the project will be kicked-off, Southampton mums-to-be will be monitored for a year.