Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics show Wagga pregnancy smoking rates above national average

2020 perinatal data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that 16.4 per cent of pregnant women in the Wagga region smoked tobacco during the first 20 weeks of their pregnancies.

A number up from the national rate of 8.9 per cent.

Wagga GP obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Carl Henman was surprised and concerned by the local figures.

"It's not a good stat," he said.

"We know that smoking in pregnancy increases a range of problems and we should be doing all we can to reduce those rates."

But despite being surprised, Dr Henman also said the numbers fit a known trend of health statistics in regional centres.

"We know that the stats in regional Australia for those types of risk factors generally are worse than in metropolitan centres," he said.

"And that goes for alcohol, obesity, smoking and drug use."

The 15.2 per cent of women who smoked tobacco in the first 20 weeks of their pregnancies in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District ranks second in NSW and sixth in the country when compared to other primary health networks.

Dr Henman said the harm caused to unborn children by smoking during a pregnancy is well documented.

"Increased rate of hypertension in pregnancy, whether or not that ends up being preeclampsia [a high blood pressure pregnancy complication]," he said.

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"We know it's related to the increased chance of having a baby who is poorly grown - that's called foetal growth restriction.

"It's probably related also to a baby not reaching its growth potential."

Cancer Council Wagga's Sheridan Evans described the newly released numbers as "quite alarming".

"I was unaware of those statistics, but they certainly are high," she said.

"And they certainly do speak to the importance of the quit smoking campaigns and programs that we do run to tackle these things."

According to Ms Evans, the Cancer Council is aware of higher smoking rates in regional areas being a problem across all demographics.

"The proportion of daily smokers in the MLHD is 10.5 per cent," she said.

"And the New South Wales average is 8.2 per cent."

Also released in the AIHW data was an above average rate of teen pregnancies, which Dr Henman said he was less surprised about seeing.

12.2/1000 pregnant women in the Wagga region were aged between 15 and 19, again comfortably above the national rate of 7.2/1000.

"It's been known for a fair while that regional areas tend to have a higher teen pregnancy rate than metropolitan centres, and that's got a whole range of socioeconomic and demographic reasons behind it," Dr Henman said.

"I think it's important to recognise and to not stigmatise teen pregnancy in and of itself.

"I've certainly come across lots of older teen mums in my career that are excellent mothers and have done very well and managed their pregnancy expertly."

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