Could ‘Aunties’ Recruit Pregnant Indigenous Women Who Smoke Into a Trial and Deliver a Cessation Intervention? A Feasibility Study Marewa Glover 1 • Anette Kira 1 • Tracey Cornell 2 • Ces Smith 3 Published online: 12 March 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract Objective Ma ¯ori (indigenous New Zealand) women have the highest smoking prevalence rates in New Zealand and whilst pregnant. We hypothesized that com- munity health workers (‘Aunties’) could find pregnant Ma ¯ori women who smoke, recruit them into a study and deliver an acceptable cessation intervention. The aim of the study was to test the feasibility of such an intervention. Method A community health organization was engaged to, using a participatory approach, conduct a feasibility study. Participants were ten Aunties and the pregnant women the Aunties recruited. The Aunties advised their participants to abstain from smoking, offered a Quitcard (for subsidized nicotine replacement) or referral to local cessation provi- ders. A booklet on healthy eating for pregnancy was given and discussed and the Aunties offered help if needed to register with a lead maternity carer (LMC). All women completed a baseline questionnaire. Semi-structured follow up face-to-face interviews were conducted with a sub- sample of women and hospital birth records were exam- ined. Descriptive statistics were produced using quantitative data. Qualitative data was deductively anal- ysed. Results During 4 months eight Aunties recruited 67 pregnant women who smoked, 88 % were Ma ¯ori, 84 % were of low socio economic status and 73 % had up to high school education. Only 36 % of the recruited women had registered with an LMC. The participants described the Aunties as supportive, nice and non-judgmental. The only criticism was a lack of follow up. Aspects of the inter- vention that the Aunties thought worked well were know- ing and being involved with their community, and being able to give a gift pack to the participating women. Insufficient follow up was one aspect that didn’t work well. The infant’s birth record was found for 54 % of the par- ticipants. Conclusion Aunties were able to identify and recruit pregnant Ma ¯ori women who smoked. The study method and intervention were acceptable to Aunties and participants and it was feasible to collect data from the participants’ hospital birth records. Based on this study, with a similar number of Aunties recruiting, it would take 2 years to recruit over 300 participants, which would be sufficient for a stronger controlled trial. Keywords Cessation Á Pregnancy Á Indigenous Á Smoking Á Tobacco Significance Finding effective ways to identify pregnant Indigenous women who smoke to deliver cessation support is urgent given the disproportionately high rates of smoking among them. Determining the feasibility of conducting efficacy trials is necessary because of the common experience of poor recruitment rates for smoking-related studies with pregnant women. & Marewa Glover m.glover@massey.ac.nz Anette Kira anette@theolssons.se 1 School of Public Health, Massey University, Private Bag 102904, North Shore, Auckland 0745, New Zealand 2 Te Poutokomanawa, Maori Health Directorate, Northland District Health Board, Maunu Road, Private Bag 9742, Whangarei 0148, New Zealand 3 Ringa Atawhai, 59 Settlers Way, Okaihau, New Zealand 123 Matern Child Health J (2016) 20:1211–1221 DOI 10.1007/s10995-016-1922-3