Rigala Andisiwa2026-07-032026-07-032025https://hdl.handle.net/10566/24815Smoking cigarettes during pregnancy places both the mother and unborn baby’s health at great risk to an extensive selection of hazardous chemicals. The World Health Organisation (WHO) appeals to countries through the requirements of the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, to empower women through education and equal access to resources. This study aims to identify the prevalence and factors that are associated with smoking cigarettes among pregnant women in South Africa. The study used sociodemographic and socio-economic characteristics, such as age, population group, level of education, wealth index status, type of residence, province of usual residence and media exposure to reveal how these variables impact on the smoking habits of pregnant mothers. The dependent variables are (frequency of smoking cigarettes and the number of cigarettes smoked in the last 24 hours). This study used data derived from the South African Demographic and Health Survey 2016, which was obtained from the UCT Data First website. The data was analysed using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 30 software. The data analysis revealed that population group and province of residence were some of the contributing factors. In addition, multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that most of the characteristics of pregnant women in the study were influencing smoking cigarettes. The study concluded that the results were surprising, and therefore, this calls for more research that will specifically look at the contributing factors of smoking cigarettes among pregnant women in South Africa.enSouth AfricaPregnant WomenSmoking CigarettesPrevalenceHealth SurveyThesis