On No Smoking Day 2021 (#NoSmokingDay 10 March 2021), iHV publishes new Good Practice Points (GPP) for health visitors – Promoting smoke-free families.

No Smoking Day is a national campaign that encourages the nation’s smokers to make a quit attempt on the second Wednesday of March each year. The day is an important opportunity to engage smokers in your local community, encouraging them to quit and access local stop smoking support.

Smoking is the single most modifiable risk factor in pregnancy. In 2019/2020, 10.4% of mothers were recorded as smokers at time of delivery. It is also known that pregnancy can be a time when parents are receptive to make changes to their behaviours.

There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke. The best way to protect children from the effects of second-hand smoke is to not smoke during pregnancy and have a completely smoke-free home and car.

This GPP provides up-to-date evidence and references.


Please note that GPPs are available to iHV members.

If you’re not a member, please join us to get access to all of our resources.

The iHV is a self-funding charity – we can only be successful in our mission to strengthen health visiting practice if the health visiting profession and its supporters join us on our journey. We rely on our membership to develop new resources for our members.

So do join us now!

button small_200

Calling all iHV members – if you missed our iHV Insights webinar on “Supporting smoke-free families” held yesterday (Thursday 29 October), then don’t worry as the resources from this iHV Insights, as well as the previous ones, are available to iHV members to access as a free member benefit afterwards.

On Thursday 29 October, we were joined by a great panel of experts including:

  • Martyn Willmore, Tobacco Control Senior Programme Manager, Health Improvement: Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco and Justice Division, Public Health England
  • Hilary Wareing, Director, Improving Performance in Practice (iPiP)
  • Vicky Gilroy, Projects and Evaluation Lead, iHV

Click here to catch up on iHV Insights Supporting smoke-free families, as well as previous iHV Insights sessions:

If you are unable to join the live event, after the event, iHV members can access:

  • Recording of the live iHV Insights webinar
  • Pdf of webinar slides
  • Responses to the Q&A session – key themes to unanswered questions provided by our expert panel
  • Record of Attendance/ Reflection template for you to download and complete for each iHV Insights attended

Next iHV Insights

Date for your diary – iHV Insights webinar: “Improving support for children with parents who are dependent on alcohol ” – 28 January 2021.

Further details,  including date and how to book, coming soon!

About iHV Insights

iHV Insights are webinars run just for our members.

These live online sessions are of interest to frontline health visitors and student health visitors, as well as service leads, commissioners and wider members of the health visiting team, both in the UK and with lots of transferable learning for our international members too.

If you are not an iHV member, join us today to access these resources and many other member benefits.

Our 5th iHV Insights webinar for iHV members takes place on Thursday 29 October 3:30 to 4:30pm.

This will cover the topic of: “Supporting smoke-free families”.

We are pleased to announce that our expert panel of speakers includes:

  • Martyn Willmore, Tobacco Control Senior Programme Manager, Health Improvement: Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco and Justice Division, Public Health England
  • Hilary Wareing, Director, Improving Performance in Practice (iPiP)

The webinar will also be recorded and will be available to iHV members on our website after the event, together with a FAQ sheet should we have a high number of questions.

Please join us.

How to book for iHV members

Go to our EventBrite booking page and please use your iHV membership number as your access code. If you have any problems or enquiries please email [email protected] and we will be happy to help.

Once you have submitted your details, you will be able to select your ticket and proceed to checkout – please note that this webinar is free to iHV members.

Previous iHV Insights

The great news is that recordings of all the iHV Insights webinars are available for iHV members to access as a free member benefit after the event.

Click here to catch up on our 4 fabulous iHV Insights sessions so far:

  • 21 May 2020 – COVID-19 in children and managing minor childhood illnesses
  • 18 June 2020 – Domestic Violence and Abuse: Keeping victims and children safe during a pandemic
  • 16 July 2020 – Health visiting during a pandemic and beyond
  • 20 August 2020 – Training as a health visitor during a pandemic

Joint research by the Universities of York and Nottingham, published today in the journal ‘Addiction’, has found that 43% of women who smoke, but manage to stay off cigarettes during pregnancy, will go back to smoking within 6 months.

By © 2005 by Tomasz Sienicki [user: tsca, mail: tomasz.sienicki at gmail.com] - Photograph by Tomasz Sienicki / Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=172810

Photograph by Tomasz Sienicki / Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=172810

While not smoking during pregnancy is very important, there is an urgent need to find better ways of helping mothers stay off cigarettes afterwards.

Dr Cheryll Adams, executive director of the iHV, said:

“It is vital that new parents remain smoke-free to ensure that their children are not exposed to the dangers of ‘second-hand’ smoke, as children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of ‘second hand’ smoke.  Through the universal service, health visitors are well-placed to support parents to continue to be smoke-free after baby is born and to explain the benefits of having a smoke-free home.”

Approximately 18,887 pregnant smokers in the UK (3% of all maternities) used NHS stop-smoking support in the financial year 2014/15..

16_pt_smoking_v4