Smoking during pregnancy appears to have decreased from 1989 through 1998. Despite increased knowledge of the adverse health effects of smoking during pregnancy, estimates of women smoking during pregnancy range from 12.9 percent to as high as 22 percent.

Since the late 1970s or early 1980s, women are just as likely to attempt to quit and succeed as are men.

Smoking prevalence among women varies markedly across countries; it is as low as an estimated 7 percent in developing countries to 24 percent in developed countries.