Why isn't being pregnant an important enough situation to quit smoking

[loveyourself87]

I'm giving my self a very hard time about this and wanted to know from Other pregnant women who are smokers what they think.. this is a subject that will no doubt invite your typical 'just stop it', 'you're being selfish' etc comments but really wanting answers from women who experience this, have a go if you want but in the best words possible, it won't make a difference to how I feel. How is it that knowing full well I am pregnant with a much wanted baby isn't enough for me to stop smoking? I have cut down from 10 a day to around 5 a day, I vape during the day but on weekends I smoke more. I know the dangers of smoking to my health and more so the effect it can have on the baby. I'm just perplexed as to what the hell is wrong with me that I'm continuing to smoke. I've read the Allen Carr book, which helped for a bit but doesn't take away the need for a smoke. I vape during the day but when I get home it's as if a treat is waiting for me. I've tried to speak to the smoke free team and have been on the waiting list for 5 weeks and yet to be seen, spoke to the midwife and she said it requires will power! I was a strong minded person prior to pregnancy and was regular active in the gym and could quit if I wanted to but it's as I'd because I can't see the negative effects of the smoking on the baby it seems like it's not real! Ignorant of me I know but what did you do to help you quit smoking.

Jason Vale Stop Smoking in 2 hours app, it's free, very powerful

My sympathies, I stopped when I was pregnant with my first 18 years ago after ivf, started again 6 months ago, what an idiot I am

@ClientListQueen thank you, I will do, I haven't had one cigarette today and I don't smoke 5 a day every day, it's just trying to understand why I do it x

@FenellaMaxwell thank you

Hypnotherapy worked very effectively for my MIL - she had one (long) session over a decade ago and hasn’t touched a cigarette since, and nor has she wanted to.

@loveyourself87 it is definitely a cause. I know someone locally who has a poor boy with no nose. He couldn't feed properly and lost so much weight he was hospitalised for hydration. He breathes with a snort, it will affect him for his entire life. He's more exposed to bacteria and viruses and has many procedures to make life more bearable. By all accounts he has a fairly miserable little existence.

@fluffyunicorns86 thank you for that, I took a snapshot of your post to read again.

You seem to be waiting on a single post that will blow your mind and bring clarity to your situation and provide enough strength to quit.

That isn't going to happen. There isn't a single post or statistic or photo of a disabled child or personal sob story that is going to effect you.

You don't know us and quite simply you do already have enough information as to why smoking is wrong. So stop waiting and looking for an excuse and just stop. Your baby is the priority not you or your cravings. You are scrolling through these responses and internally saying 'oh well I'm still not stopping' it's a strange power struggle between all of us and you

also every time you do smoke, visualise holding the cigarette to the lips of a newborn baby for them to take a drag.

@Serabi a few posts have impacted me, you don't know me or how I think! You have said your piece and I thanked you for it! What more do you want?

@FenellaMaxwell oh wow, that's horrible! Thank you

Hi OP, you are getting some good advice. Honestly, I think you do have to make a huge concentrated effort to imagine the effects of smoking every single time you feel the urge for a cigarette. Google the images. Read the accounts online. A friend of mine struggled the same way and she paid a price for it. Just imagine having to have an emergency C-section at 36.5 weeks, then having your baby who weighs less than 4lbs at almost term being whisked away to a special care unit. While all the other mothers are holding their babies on the postnatal ward, you have to make the trip up and down to the special care unit to see your precious baby. After a few days you have to go home and leave your baby in the hospital because she is still too tiny and fragile. This is what happened my friend. She couldn't visualise the harm she was doing either. She was horribly unlucky in some ways, she is not what I would call a heavy smoker and her daughter was so badly affected and another baby might not have been with the same level of smoking. But that's the risk you are taking.

Thank you to all who have commented with their tips and advice whether it was positive or negative. I will see my GP tomorrow. I have certainly taking a few tips on board and will sort this out. Just to clarify, I do not smoke every day, and I should have made that more clearer. I wanted a reason as to why , if I can not smoke during the day or for days, that I then want to go and smoke. Thanks again and good luck to those wanting to quit too x

The fact that you have got to 11am without having a smoke shows that you're not physically addicted at all. You're a social, habitual smoker. You're saying you have a physical addiction to justify your choice. And it absolutely is a choice that you're making. You're choosing to continue to smoke. You're choosing to put the foetus inside your uterus at risk of significant harm. And you're making excuses about it. You know you're being selfish. We know you're being selfish. Because you're putting yourself before the health needs of the baby, a baby who is not able to make any choice on how many carcinogenic substances will enter its bloodstream via the placenta attached to the person providing those carcinogens.
Awesome parenting!

@loveyourself87 I havnt read all the replys so I will persume you have the STOP NOW comments but I smoked when I got pregnant with my 1st and I tried everything to stop and couldn't at all. Smoking midwives helped but tbh I just wasn't in the mind frame to stop which I think is part of the problem... I still smoked when I got pregnant with my 2nd 5 years later and eventually stopped during the pregnancy.. I tried all sorts of things to stop from patches to those little inhaler things you can get from midwives and the thing that I did was literally stopped. I didn't have that first cig of the day I made myself busy I won't say its easy as it isn't the first 3 days was horrible I bought sweets/mints so everytime I wanted a cig I had one of those instead. Also alot of smokers associate smoking to relieve stress etc which doesn't actually work or may work for like 2 minutes. You need to be in the mind frame to want to stop and not because your being made too/having to if that makes sence. I'll never be one of these who say your putting your baby at risk blah blah because everyone who smokes knows what risks their are and as an ex smoker I also know how hard it can be to stop. Throw the cigs out your house don't have that first one of the day. Don't buy cigs throughout the day keep yourself occupied and away from other smokers if you can this is what helped me and don't vape either get rid of it. Still having these things around you won't help xx

@Soontobe60 thank you for opinion. I do appreciate what you wrote and these posts are impacting me.. perhaps I need some harsh reality checks because I am the only one who will have to deal with the effects of what I am doing! I am trying and trust me I am not one who is seeking sympathy at all, I wanted to hear from other mums to be who are in the same boat and to find out what they did and the rational behind it( obviously it's their baby). I am going to try harder. Thanks again

Op when did you start smoking? Did your parents smoke? I am a heavy smoker btw.

You just don't seem to care enough. People are telling you what could happen and you're trying to justify it. How can you be so unemotional?

I had a really serious, severe 10 year needle phobia prior to getting pregnant. I can't even describe the visceral terror I felt just thinking about needles. I refused all blood tests and vaccinations for those 10 years. But as easy as it would have been to keep doing that, there's no way I was going to refuse them during pregnancy if it could harm my baby. It's not about me anymore. I just had to get over it. You need to do the same.

If you're smoking so little, I wonder if one of those distraction type of techniques would help you. I'm thinking of things like an elastic band around your wrist that you ping yourself with when you have the urge. I've read of people doing stuff like that, I don't know how effective it is but maybe it's worth a try. Or, something more "positive" perhaps. Like eating your favourite snack or treat food instead. A bar of chocolate or whatever it may be.

@FloreanFortescue the picture of a baby with a cleft lip was bloody insensitive; my baby has a cleft lip and palate and I've never been a smoker in my life let alone during pregnancy. Please don't make it seem like having a cleft baby is some hideous thing to happen resulting from poisoning your body. Sometimes it just happens and my baby is beautiful.

It's an addiction. It's horrible. I was lucky enough that I'd quit way before I got pregnant with my first, and by the second time I was smoking again but the smell of smoke made me feel sick so it was easy to stop.
Started again a few months afterwards, quit for a year, started again.
It's incredibly hard. I work in healthcare. I see the long term effects first hand. But I still can't quit.

I was addicted to espresso (and I mean addicted - usually had 5 doubles before lunch and another 3-4 in the evening). The only thing that worked for me during pregnancy was going cold turkey. I think maybe try that and see how it works. I wouldn’t replace smoking with vaping tho as it’s probably more dangerous (we just don’t know the risks yet).

Also thank you for the good luck. It's so expensive I literally won't have the money to smoke for a month after the hypnotherapy session so I really am counting on it working!

I was told by a consultant and midwives that the quickmist sprays are not harmful to baby and used that up to and after the birth of my second, I still use it now but have never smoked again. Definitely need to stop that too but it's not really an issue compared to smoking or vaping. I prefer it to both! Give it a go, cheaper on Amazon than the chemists. Good luck

@DerbyshireGirly I've only written one post, read the replies if you can be bothered.

@loveyourself87 you are not the only one who will have to deal with it. Your child will have to deal with it for the rest of their life. This thread is full of you making excuses.