Health of mothers: integration of oral health and tobacco control into antenatal care
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1
School of Dentistry and Dental Research Institute, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea
 
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Department of Paediatrics, Galway University Hospital, Ireland
 
3
World Federation of Public Health, Ireland
 
4
Department Prevention and Evaluation, Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Evaluation, Germany
 
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Ramalingaswami Centre on Equity and Social Determinants of Health, Public Health Foundation of India, India
 
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World Federation of Public Health
 
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National Health Mission, Karkinos Healthcare, India
 
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World Federation of Public Health, India
 
 
Publication date: 2023-04-27
 
 
Popul. Med. 2023;5(Supplement):A1569
 
ABSTRACT
This workshop aims to showcase how two WFPHA workgroups (oral health and tobacco control) collaborate to improve the health of mothers by integrating oral health and tobacco prevention/cessation into primary and antenatal care systems. Oral health is a neglected public health topic globally. The who recently reported that global case numbers of oral diseases have increased by 1 billion over the last 30 years, which is higher than cases of all five main non-communicable diseases combined. Women are the key change agents to secure and promote the oral health of communities and families. Mothers’ oral health, knowledge, and behaviors can influence children’s oral health. Therefore, pregnancy is a window of opportunity to intervene in tobacco prevention and cessation. There is no safe level of fetal tobacco exposure. Research showed that maternal tobacco use during pregnancy approximately doubled the risk of stillbirth and congenital defects and increased the incidence of prematurity and low-birth-weight infants. There is expert consensus that pregnant women who use tobacco should be counseled about cessation from the first trimester. Concern for the fetus combined with regular clinician interaction results in a greater efficacy of tobacco cessation interventions during pregnancy compared to other times. In this workshop, an analysis of the integrative approach for maternal oral health and tobacco cessation will be demonstrated in the India context. About two-thirds of pregnant women have active dental caries, and almost 90% of adults have periodontitis. Tobacco use among women, especially pregnant women, is a significant public health problem in India, with 7.5% of pregnant women being tobacco users. The Indian national oral health strategy will be published next year with a heavy emphasis on tobacco cessation, and the Indian government has rolled out the Ayushman Bharat (health and wellness centres) initiative, with oral health highlighted throughout the plan. However, there is room for improvement in emphasizing how oral health and tobacco control can be integrated into existing ANC systems, focusing on implementation and evaluation. WFPHA collaborated with the public health foundation of India to support the effective integration of oral health and tobacco control programs into ANC, and the workshop will demonstrate the analysis process. WFPHA aims to perform a scoping review to identify existing national and international maternal tobacco prevention and cessation frameworks and/or recommendations to analyze them concerning the following points: (a) common core elements in those frameworks (scientific evidence, addressed workforce, best practices, etc.), (b) differences based on contextual variation, (c) jurisdiction and legal quality. Not all maternal health and oral health strategies and clinical guidelines include straightforward tobacco prevention and cessation strategies specific for women of childbearing age for primary care and dental providers to adapt in clinical practice. Furthermore, national maternal tobacco control strategies are highly diverse between countries in terms of context, practice, and targeted healthcare workforce. This scoping review and analysis aim to understand the core elements of maternal tobacco control frameworks, which can be used for the future development of maternal tobacco control frameworks and mutual learning between countries.
ISSN:2654-1459
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