NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young women who smoke cigarettes, use marijuana or binge drink will often stop doing so while they are pregnant, but a partner's pregnancy has no effect on young men's pot use or binge drinking pattern, a new study shows. Efforts to reduce substance use during pregnancy focus almost exclusively on women, although research has shown that if a woman's partner continues to drink or smoke during her pregnancy, she is more likely to do so as well, and will also be more likely to return to substance use after giving birth, the researchers point out. To better understand patterns of substance use during pregnancy for fathers as well as mothers, the researchers evaluated 412 men and 396 women who were 24 years old and were participating in a long-term study of behavior. However, men who smoked cigarettes were less likely to do so while their partner was pregnant, the researchers found, with rates dropping from 42 to 37 percent during a partner's pregnancy. Thirty percent of the women smoked before becoming pregnant, which decreased to 20 percent during their first trimester for 7 months after birth, but smoking rates rebounded within 1 year. Six percent of the women reported binge drinking before pregnancy, which was reduced to 2 percent by the first trimester. read more

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