The Benefits of Quitting Smoking During Pregnancy
- QuitSure Team
- May 23
- 6 min read
Pregnancy involves a powerful change that is emotional, physical and psychological. Choices made by a mother during pregnancy can shape her baby’s health and the rest of their life. A very important choice for a pregnant woman is giving up smoking.
Even though many are aware of the problem, women still sometimes smoke while pregnant. CDC estimates that approximately 7.2% of women said they smoked while pregnant during the last few years. In India, because not many people are aware and not enough support is provided, tobacco use among women becomes a bigger problem.
A positive outcome is that the benefits of quitting appear quickly and are obvious, supporting the mother and the unborn child alike. We look into the scientific studies backing why quitting is good, real success stories and how QuitSure helps moms-to-be quit easily and stay healthy.
Why Is It Unsafe to Smoke During Pregnancy?
Being aware of the dangers smoking has for mother and baby should come before reviewing the benefits of quitting. More than 70 of the 7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke are known to cause cancer. When smoking, pregnant women deliver unsafe chemicals, mainly carbon monoxide and nicotine, to the baby.
A lack of oxygen caused by carbon monoxide in the mother’s blood can stop the foetus from developing properly. As nicotine limits blood supply, this can cause a baby to be born too early or to miscarry. In addition, smoking can lead to sudden infant death and raise the chances of lasting issues in thinking and behaviour for the child.
As well as its physical risks, smoking in pregnancy adds to the mother’s risk of complications like problems with the placenta and an ectopic pregnancy. This knowledge proves why quitting smoking is crucial to keep your body and your baby safe.
Quitting Benefits: For the Baby
Let’s understand what benefits your baby enjoys when you stop smoking during your pregnancy.
1. Born at Healthier Birth Weight
Stopping smoking in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy results in babies being as healthy at birth as those born to mothers who never smoked. As a result, your baby is less likely to have growth problems and be healthier in the long term.
2. Lower the Chance of Preterm Birth
Women who stop smoking have a decreased chance of premature childbirth. A full-term pregnancy allows your baby’s brain, lungs and total health to develop properly. Stopping smoking is good for your baby, as it keeps you from going into early labour or losing it too soon.
3. Better delivery of oxygen
Smoking cuts back the amount of oxygen your baby gets, which slows their development. Once you quit, oxygen levels go back to healthy levels right away, which allows your vital organs to develop correctly. The additional supply of oxygen helps your baby’s healthy growth by stopping you from smoking.
4. Lowers the Chance of SIDS
If you quit smoking part of the way through pregnancy, it will dramatically reduce your baby’s risk of SIDS. Quitting smoking during pregnancy greatly improves your baby’s safety before birth and once your child is born.
5. Higher-level thinking skills
Kids whose mothers quit smoking generally outperform others in terms of academics and have fewer problems with behaviour. Since quitting smoking benefits your brain, it improves your child’s ability to learn and supports healthy emotional growth during their childhood years.
How Can Quitting Smoking Improve a Mother’s Health?
Kicking the habit of smoking while pregnant is kind to your child and helps you stay healthier both now and in the future. We’ll discuss how you can improve your well-being by deciding to stop smoking.
1. Better Heart Care
Smoking greatly increases the risk of developing heart attacks and strokes. Ceasing smoking lets your heart rate and blood pressure settle, which relieves some of the work on your heart and blood vessels. Your risk of heart disease goes down as the years pass. One year after giving up smoking, you are shown to face only half the risk of a smoker getting coronary heart disease.
2. Better performance of the lungs
As a result of smoking, the lungs can become permanently damaged and cause a chronic illness known as COPD. Stopping smoking lets your lungs recover and reduces the chance of you getting lung infections. After only a few months, ex-smokers find their lungs working better, and they cough and breathe easier.
3. Better opportunities for family planning
Smoking can make it harder for women to become pregnant. Deciding to quit smoking raises your chances of becoming pregnant and helps prevent issues during pregnancy. Quitting smoking helps protect against miscarriage and premature birth.
4. Lower Chance of Getting Cancer
Breathing in tobacco smoke is responsible for most cases of lung, cervical and breast cancer. When you quit smoking, you greatly decrease your chance of getting these cancers. Every year smoke-free dramatically reduces your chances of getting lung cancer, and you are half as likely to die from it after only 10 years.
5. Better Mental Health and a More Even Mood
Nicotine addiction may result in feeling anxious, low or moody. Practising abstinence from cigarette smoking helps calm your nerves and soothes your mood. Many researchers mention that giving up smoking can be beneficial for mental health, leading to reduced symptoms related to depression and anxiety.
6. Better Looking Skin
Smoking makes the skin age more quickly, causing wrinkles, less shine and less elasticity. When you quit smoking, the skin’s health and youthful appearance are helped by improved blood circulation. Soon after, you might notice your skin is brighter and seems to be ageing less.
The Role of the QuitSure App: Your Personalised Quitting Coach
It is a difficult road to travel, but quitting smoking can bring a lot of benefits. Success in quitting smoking comes from matching the approach to each person’s situation and behaviour. The QuitSure app is there for you, providing personalised support, ideas to keep going and tools to help you quit forever.
A Quit Plan Made to Fit Your Needs
The QuitSure app doesn’t believe that everyone should use the same method. Instead, it makes a plan for quitting that matches your routine and the things that make you smoke. The plan changes as you go, leading you down the right way all the time. If you’re a casual smoker or if you smoke regularly, QuitSure will help you and encourage you to keep going.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
QuitSure makes use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in both its audio and exercise modules. They teach you how to identify and improve the habits and thoughts that cause smoking. You can better cope with your urges, lower stress and stay driven, all with this approach and without using nicotine products or medications.
Keep a record of your achievements.
Keeping track of your process encourages you to continue. The progress reports from QuitSure highlight how many cigarettes you avoided, how much money you’ve saved and how your health has improved. Taking note of successes, small or big, helps you continue moving forward toward your goal.
24/7 Support and Community
Leaving smoking can be lonely, but QuitSure is there to help 24 hours a day. A group of people trying to quit as well can offer you help, listen to your issues and cheer you on. Quite simply, being part of a group makes you more confident and less likely to go back to old patterns.
Methods for Avoiding a Relapse
Mistakes do happen, but QuitSure’s relapse prevention will help you recover. When you are motivated continuously and given the right advice, you feel able to manage cravings and triggers.
Final Thoughts
Being a mother first requires you to make important decisions. To quit smoking can be extremely hard, yet the rewards from quitting are enormous.
While caring for your baby, you’re also improving your own strength. With the help of apps like QuitSure, mothers everywhere are deciding to make healthier habits, proving that things can always improve.
FAQs
1. Why should someone quit smoking when they are pregnant?
When you quit smoking during pregnancy, your baby is less likely to be born early or light or develop health issues. You can achieve these benefits using QuitSure, which does not require medications.
2. When will I begin to notice quitting helping me after I quit smoking?
Within hours of quitting, your baby’s oxygen levels can improve, and your blood circulation will get better. The app walks you through everything you need to do to make the most of these benefits safely during pregnancy.
3. Is quitting smoking still an option if I’m already expecting?
You can still appreciate the benefits of quitting any time. Just stopping even late in pregnancy will help you both. The app helps you with support at the stage you’re in, enabling you to quit whenever you choose during your pregnancy.
4. Is QuitSure effective in helping control cravings during pregnancy?
Yes! You can listen to CBT-based audio sessions in QuitSure to handle stress and cravings, helping you stop smoking. There are no drugs, and it’s designed to help pregnant women be smoke-free during their pregnancy.
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