Ideally, as soon as you find out you are pregnant you should stop smoking. Every time you have a cigarette it harms your baby. It makes their heart beat faster, it encourages abnormalities and, at the end of the day, miscarriages and still births are also linked to smoking so you need to think about giving up.
Smoking is not a good environment for any baby to be in so if you smoke, you should really go out into the garden. And when you come back indoors, you shouldn’t hold you baby for at least an hour after you’ve had a cigarette.
One of the biggest side affects to smoking linked to babies, unfortunately, is cot death. You need to think about the long term health effects of your baby. As soon as it becomes a small child there’s the risks of pneumonia, bronchitis and chronic chest infections. The sooner you stop, the less likely it is to get those.
To stop smoking you need to change your activities. So you need to think about the way you eat and the things you do in your spare time. Smoking is a filling activity: filling your time in another way whether that’s going out for a walk, chopping vegetables or something else you can do to fill that time to stop yourself smoking.
Quitting is never easy. Smoking is an addiction. Your midwife will refer you to a smoking cessation councillor and also the stop smoking service that’s provided by the government.
Think of the benefits: it’s great for your health; it’s great for your baby’s health and think of the money in your pocket to buy yourself those fab new jeans when you’ve had this baby.
About video: Midwife Tracey Owen explains how smoking can harm your baby and even lead to miscarriage and other birth complications.
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