02 July 2014 02 Jul 2014

Positive steps in public health

It isn't often that there is so much good news in the press surrounding midwifery. On 19 June the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC, 2014) released new figures showing the prevalence of women giving birth who classed themselves as smokers at the time was the lowest it has been in 8 years. Rates have fallen from 15.1% since they were first measured in 2006-07 to 12% this year. So we are well on the way to achieving the Government-set target of 11% by 2015.