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Pregnant woman smokingQuitting smoking was the greatest sacrifice I’ve made for my baby. If you’re a smoker or an ex-smoker, you know what I’m talking about.

I have been smoking ever since I was 18, for over 12 years and really enjoyed it. Cigarettes were a part of who I was and I had no desire to quit during my smoking years, not even once. What is more, I considered smoking to be one of the pleasures of life, and giving up the cigarettes would make me feel deprived of that pleasure, like I was giving up something important that nothing else can replace.

I was into sports, swimming and rock climbing and still didn’t have enough motivation to quit smoking. My fellow climbers were telling me that I would be able to get better results if it wasn’t for cigarettes but I was replying with: “Yep, that’s right, let’s change the subject” or if they were pushy: “What are you, my mother? Jeez!”.

Speaking of my mother, my whole family are non-smokers and what can I tell you, the pressure they put on me to stop smoking was enough to make 10 drug addicts quit cold turkey. Yet somehow that didn’t make me throw my cigarettes away. It was the unborn (and at that point un-conceived) member of my family that made me smoke-free.

The turning point for me was when I started to think about getting pregnant. The thing about me is that I don’t handle mess-ups really well. I am this awful perfectionist wannaby (or at least I was back then) and every mistake I make lives in my memory for ages, burning a hole, making me feel ashamed and angry at myself. So I was thinking – what if my smoking harms the baby, how am I going to live with myself?

We all know the dangers of smoking to babies:

  • It retards growth
  • It affects brain development
  • The baby is more likely to have blocked airways at birth
  • The likelihood of premature birth increases
  • The likelihood of death at birth and SIDS increases for newborns
  • There are all kinds of placenta problems that smokers are likely to have
  • It is harmful for the lungs and the hearts of babies

    • And the list goes on. That scary list was my first step towards becoming smoke-free – it made me decide to stop smoking.

    This is not the end of it – actually it’s just the beginning, but my mommy duties are calling. More later!