A quarter did not know whether what they vaped in pregnancy had nicotine in it

Most electronic vapour products contain nicotine, a developmental toxicant,
along with other harmful additives.

In 2015, among women in Oklahoma and Texas with a recent live birth:

The number that matters most

Among those who used them during pregnancy:

**More than a quarter could not say whether they had been exposing a fetus to
nicotine.**

That is not carelessness. It is a straightforward product-information failure:
in 2015 the labelling of vapour products was inconsistent, the nicotine content
was frequently unstated or wrong, and a person buying one had no reliable way
to find out.

The consequence for advice is specific. Telling someone to avoid nicotine in
pregnancy assumes they can tell whether they are consuming it. For a quarter of
this group, that assumption did not hold — so the actionable advice is about
the product category rather than the ingredient.

And the remaining implication is arithmetic: **38.4% knew it had nicotine, 26.4%
did not know** — leaving about a third who believed it did not. Given what was
actually in these products, some of them were wrong.

Why the wider figure is included

The 7.0% covers shortly before, during or after pregnancy, against
1.4% during. Most women who used these products around a pregnancy did not
use them while pregnant — which says the message about pregnancy was reaching
people.

It also identifies where to intervene. A woman vaping before conception is the
one to reach, because stopping later is harder than not starting again; and
post-partum use matters for the household the infant is in.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MMWR.