MORE needs to be done to stop pregnant woman from smoking, councillors have said.

The call for greater intervention by the county council came as as the authority's health and overview scrutiny committee discussed a range of "extremely challenging" targets set for health authorities to reduce the number of baby deaths by 2020.

Newer targets also include reducing the number of mothers smoking at birth to less than six per cent by 2022.

Cllr Fran Oborski led the call saying it was "absolutely terrifying" to see so many parents not only smoking whilst pregnant but smoking whilst walking their children to and from school.

"It is just a message that we are not getting across to the people that need to hear it," she said.

"Do they not realise that not only are they harming the baby they are carrying but the child that is stood next to them?"

Cllr Oborski suggested putting up hard-hitting warning signs at the entrances of primary schools to guilt-trip parents - but wondered if that would be inappropriate.

Cllr Paul Tuthill, chairman of the committee, said: "Personally I think we should be putting something like that up.

"People know that smoking is for bad them and I think it's obvious that people want to give it up. The problem is they can't. It's an addiction.

"How do we support people that are addicted and how do we recognise that the addiction is a physical addiction?"

Two-thirds of councillors agreed with Cllr Tuthill that the council should be discouraging smoking in such a blunt way.

Michelle McKay, chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said she encouraged staff to challenge people smoking outside the hospital.

"I come from a county where it is in fact illegal to smoke in a hospital site.

"Staff are encouraged to challenge but they are often met with abuse."