IT'S a major cause of premature birth and miscarriage but now young pregnant mums in Hampshire are to be given shopping vouchers as an incentive to give up smoking.

Under the new scheme expectant mums under 20 will receive £20 Love2shop vouchers each month for the length of their pregnancy.

The vouchers can be used in a range of high street shops including New Look, Gap, Debenhams, Boots, Superdrug and Mothercare if they ditch tobacco.

The scheme is part of a programme to be launched by Solent NHS Trust and Southampton City Council next month.

From March 6, a pilot group of 20 young mums-to-be will be enrolled on the Family Nurse Partnership Programme.

They will monitored regularly to verify that they are staying off the cigarettes in order to receive the reward vouchers.

Participants will be asked to set a quit date at the start of the project and will have to attend weekly support sessions at the Royal South Hants Hospital.

At the end of the project ten of them will be interviewed to see if the initiative worked well.

A £10,000 grant to fund the research has come from the NHS Family Nurse Partnership.

Part of the money will be used to buy vouchers while the rest will fund research.

However, Conservative city councillor Graham Wilkinson does not believe public money should be spent in this way.

He said: “I am not sure that public resources should be spent to help young mums stop smoking. We shouldn’t use additional money from the NHS. I am in support of the campaign but I don’t think people should need to receive a reward for stopping smoking to protect their own child.”

Diane Henty, family nurse supervisor, said: “The reality is that there are young mums who are smoking and could benefit from additional support to drop the habit.

“Ultimately, the aim of the scheme is to help young mums give birth to healthy babies and to make them aware of the issues that smoking whilst pregnant can cause."

Southampton City Council will provide monitors and support if the young mothers need extra treatment to stop smoking.

The initiative comes after figures revealed one in seven women in the city smoked while they were pregnant.

Statistics also showed that hundreds of expecting mums in the city were smoking at the time they gave birth.

This has been proved to have life-threatening consequences on babies and it is considered to be the cause of more than 2,000 premature births and 5,000 miscarriages every year.

Cllr Dave Shields, cabinet member for health and sustainability at Southampton City Council, said: “This is an evidence-based way to help young mothers quit smoking and one that could help us tackle the major public health issue of smoking in pregnancy in Southampton.

"We hope to help many young mothers to make a positive choice.”