4. Discussion
In this sample of Spanish pregnant women, the prevalence of smoking in the first trimester was high (17.4%) and similar to rates observed in other studies (Maxson et al., 2012; Meghea et al., 2012; Smedberg et al., 2015). The pregnant smoker profile found in the present study corroborate that smokers tend not to cohabit with or have a partner (Dupraz et al., 2013; Goedhart et al., 2009; Maxson et al., 2012), are more likely to have a lower household income or lower socioeconomic status (Krstev et al., 2012; Maxson et al., 2012) and a lower educational level (De Wilde et al., 2013; Goedhart et al., 2009; Krstev et al., 2012; Linares-Scott et al., 2009; Maxson et al., 2012; Smedberg et al., 2015). Additionally, and consistent with prior research (De Wilde et al., 2013; Dupraz et al., 2013), pregnant smokers are more likely to have a partner who smokes, which indicates that household smoking is a significant risk factor for smoking, an assumption that is valid for the general smoking population. However, findings concerning age and parity in the current study do not match all results from the literature since no differences were found between smokers and nonsmokers in age or in parity. Furthermore, from a psychological point of view, higher percentages of depression and/or anxiety were also reported among pregnant smokers by previous studies (De Wilde et al., 2013; Eiden et al., 2011; Goedhart et al., 2009; Linares-Scott et al., 2009; Ludman et al., 2000; Varescon et al., 2013).
