A total of 448 mothers (12 per cent) from the Western NSW Local Area Health District (WNSWLHD) smoked between one and 10 cigarettes a day while heavily pregnant, with a further 115 (3.1 per cent) smoking more than 10 a day.

The remaining 3128 who gave birth didn’t smoke at all in the second half of their pregnancy.

The data was part of the annual Mothers and Babies report, released on Thursday and showed that two and a half times more pregnant women from Western NSW smoked compared to the state average of 6 per cent.

The rate of Indigenous women from Western NSW who smoked was far higher, with 38 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders smoking during the latter stages of pregnancy.

Despite the region being well above the state average, the region’s results were on a downward trend compared to 2012. Women who continued to smoke were smoking less, the data showed.

Dr Michelle Cretikos, NSW Health’s director of Population Health Clinical Quality and Safety, said the declines in pregnancy smoking rates were very encouraging, and suggested concerted campaigns and programs embedded in antenatal services were helping pregnant women quit smoking.

“We know that smoking in pregnancy is harmful to both the mother and the baby and the best thing women can do for their babies is to stop smoking,” Dr Cretikos told Fairfax Media.

Smoking in pregnancy raises the risk of ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage, giving birth prematurely, or a small and unwell baby. In the most tragic cases, these babies die during or shortly after birth.

In 2016 Western NSW accounted for 3740 (3.8 per cent) of the state’s births with 60.3 per cent delivered via a normal birth, 18.8 via elective caesarian and 11.7 per cent by emergency caesarian.

There were 20 cases across the LHD where a child was born unexpectedly before reaching the hospital.

A total of 98.9 per cent of births in the region were liveborn and survived, down slightly compared to 99.2 across the state.