4 Effective Ways to Quit Smoking During Pregnancy

Pregnancy gives many women a great reason to quit smoking today. However, it may also complicate their options, considering the fact that some treatments have contraindications to pregnancy. If you’re pregnant but looking to quit smoking now, you may not be able to stop on your own and at the same time, some medications may not be good for you and your baby. The good thing is, there are plenty of effective ways to quit smoking while pregnant. Here are some of them:

Quit Cold Turkey

This involves quitting altogether without the use of any treatment or intervention program. This can be quite stressful especially if you’ve been smoking for a long while now. However, you can be sure that you’re not putting your baby at risk if you choose this method. Furthermore, there is no scientific proof that the stress associated with quitting smoking has severe effects on the fetus. But to be successful, you have to be determined enough to stop smoking today without any help from others or from medications. Just think about your baby and what smoking can do to him or her.

Cutting Down Gradually

If you can’t quit smoking immediately, cutting down slowly may just be the thing. Reduce your cigarette consumption bit by bit until you’re finally down to zero. This method is completely safe as long as you’re able to finally quit smoking by the time that you’re already 14 weeks pregnant. But if you will continue to smoke after that period, you are still exposing your baby to the harmful effects of smoking.

Psychotherapy

Experts can attest to this – counseling can help you quit smoking now. Whether you join an individual session, a support group, or an online smoking cessation community, seeking advice from a specialist can strengthen your willpower to quit smoking today. Through counseling, you can intelligently assess the psychological aspects of your habit, your smoking triggers, and how you can effectively deal with them. The government offers free quit lines where you can seek professional advice and encouragement from therapists for free.

 Alternative Treatments

If you’re looking to quit smoking but you’re afraid of the possible consequences of medications, especially on your developing child, you may want to consider the alternative methods. Among the most popular for quit smoking are acupuncture and hypnosis. The use of these alternative treatments is becoming widespread. In fact, they are being covered in many insurance policies. However, there’s limited evidence that these therapies work and experts are not completely sure of how they can help people quit smoking. Some claim that acupuncture helps a smoker deal with the psychological symptoms of quitting while hypnosis has been proven to help people deal with issues on dependency.

There’s no harm in trying all these methods because they do not pose any physical harm to your child. You may even try each of them one at a time, or combine two or more of these smoking cessation methods.

Quitting smoking during pregnancy is the best thing you can do for your baby. So make sure to quit smoking NOW.

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