Vouchers Boost Smoking Abstinence During Pregnancy
When obstetricians' advice was reinforced with voucher payments for not smoking, pregnant women attained much higher abstinence rates, a recent NIDA-funded clinical study found. In addition, the women who earned vouchers scored higher than a control group on two out of three measures of third-trimester fetal growth, a predictor of newborns' health. The pay-for-proof approach has helped patients addicted to smoking and other drugs in previous trials; it was adapted to motivate pregnant women and new mothers. A Little Added Incentive Dr. Stephen Higgins, Dr. Sarah Heil, and colleagues at the