All pregnant women who are smokers should be offered nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) as an option to help them quit, Australian researchers say.

In a review published in the MJA, authors said that even though there was a general acknowledgement that there was no firm evidence that proved NRT was safe or effective in pregnancy, all the current guidelines recommend its use for women who couldn’t quit without medication.

In a nutshell, NRT is safer than smoking, and smoking during pregnancy is the most important preventable risk factor for poor maternal and infant health outcomes, they said.