Pregnancy and Beyond Stop Smoking Team

The effects of smoking on your child’s health.

Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of second hand smoke. Second hand smoke is a mixture of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by the person smoking.

Second hand smoke can increase the risk of:

• Wheezing and coughing
• Asthma
• Ear infections and glue ear
• Sudden Infant Death
• Respiratory infections
• Bacterial meningitis.

Second hand smoke can also harm your baby even before they are born. When you inhale smoke you’re putting chemicals into your body, including tar and carbon monoxide which is a poisonous gas. These chemicals damage both your body and your unborn baby and can cause a wide range of health problems.

Quit for you, Quit for 2

Stopping smoking is the single most effective thing you can to do to improving the health of your unborn baby and you. The earlier you stop smoking the better it is for both of you.

We support women throughout pregnancy and beyond, so that the risks of smoking and second hand smoke are reduced as much as possible.

This is what we do:

• Help support pregnant women to think about quitting smoking and move them towards setting a quit date
• Provide individual quit smoking support programmes to pregnant women, post delivery women up until a year after the child’s birth
• Support the whole family by helping the significant others in a woman’s life to quit smoking
• Give advice on the wide range of nicotine replacement products such as nicotine replacement therapy,  issue vouchers to be redeemed at their local chemist
• Promote SmokeFree Homes
• Signpost to relevant services
• Liaise with the health professionals involved in a pregnant woman’s care such as midwife, health visitor, GP
• Even if a woman hasn’t committed to a full quit, the service will continue to encourage them through a programme of support telephone calls, letters, and text messages up until a year after the baby is born.

We can see you to offer support at:

• Antenatal clinics at Doncaster Women’s Hospital
• At Family Hub’s
• In the client’s home
• We are committed to a non-judgmental approach and emphasise that it is never too late to quit in order to gain a positive benefit for both the mother and her baby
• We understand how difficult it is and offer support throughout your pregnancy and beyond

iHV Top Tips for Parents (Moving from Pregnancy to the First Few Weeks) – The effects of smoking