Smoking during pregnancy and postpartum among Tunisian women

Objective. The validity of self-reported smoking in population surveys remains an important question yet to be answered. This has been of particular concern in a situation where there is a strong social pressure against pregnant and postpartum women. An associated question is what would be the value of measuring urinary cotinine concentrations in such surveys to obtain validated smoking data.Methods. Cross-sectional analysis of data on self-reported smoking and urinary cotinine among a sample of 398 pregnant women and recently pregnant, mothers of infants under the age of 2 months, who came to the Family Planning Clinic in Tunis urban area for either prenatal or newborn care. We used quantitative colorimetric urine test based on the konig reaction, in which pink-red chromophores formed from nicotine and its metabolites condensation with barbituric acid were extracted into acetate buffer.Results. The smoking prevalence among Tunisian pregnant women or mothers of newborn infants was 4%. The validity of self...