"An intensive text messaging program provides some pregnant women help in fighting the urge to light up a smoke according to a study out today. Our findings show that a text messaging program helped some groups of pregnant women quit smoking during pregnancy says lead author Lorien C. Abroms httpspublichealth.gwu.edudepartmentspreventionandcommunityhealthlorienabroms ScD MA an associate professor of prevention and community health at Milken Institute School of Public Health httppublichealth.gwu.edu Milken Institute SPH at the George Washington University. The studys findings suggest a potential new quitting strategy especially for those later in their pregnancies and older pregnant women. The researchers recruited pregnant women who were already enrolled in an established text messaging program called Textbaby. Textbaby has been found to have a positive health impact on alcohol consumption during pregnancybut not smoking. Abroms and her team wanted to find out if a more intensive mobile phone program called Quitbaby would be more effective. To find out the team recruited nearly  pregnant women who smoked an average of  cigarettes per day and wanted more help to quit. Quitbaby is targeted to smoking cessation and sends more text messagesbetween  and  per day aimed at bolstering a pregnant womans resolve to quit. The messages help educate the women about the health risks associated with smoking and they are interactiveallowing a woman to text back for more help if she is experiencing a craving or goes back to smoking.  After three months  percent of the women who were enrolled in both Textbaby and Quitbaby had quit compared with just  percent of women getting just Textbaby. However the difference between the two groups did not reach statistical significance the authors say. The more intensive intervention did seem to help two subgroups quit smoking at least in the short run Abroms says. The combo of Textbaby and Quitbaby helped women age  and older and those in the second and third trimester of pregnancy quit through the delivery date and in some cases beyond. However the researchers found that the resolve to quit seemed to disappear postpartum as many of these women started smoking again. Very little help is provided to pregnant smokers who want to quit so the studys findings are important especially if the strategy can be adjusted to be more effective Abroms says. Despite the health risks about  percent of women smoke throughout their pregnancy in the United States. Additional studies must be done to find out if Quitbaby can be paired with other smoking cessation tools in order to provide longterm help for pregnant women who want to kick their smoking habit for good she says. The study A Randomized Trial of Text Messaging for Smoking Cessation in Pregnant Women http was published October  in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.  The headline of this release was edited for clarity to match the content in the body of the release. The research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse part of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Abroms has stock in Wellpass Inc. formerly Voxiva Inc. and has licensed Textquit and Quitbaby to Wellpass. About Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University Established in July  as the School of Public Health and Health Services Milken Institute School of Public Health httppublichealth.gwu.edu is the only school of public health in the nations capital. Today more than  students from  U.S. states and territories and more than  countries pursue undergraduate graduate and doctorallevel degrees in public health. The school also offers an online Master of Public Health MPHGW httpspublichealthonline.gwu.edu an online Executive Master of Health Administration MHAGW httpsmha.gwu.edu and an online Master of Science in Management of Health Informatics and Analytics HealthInformaticsGW https_releasesHealthInformaticsGW which allow students to pursue their degree from anywhere in the world."