Q&A: Is it safe to use products like Nicorette during pregnancy?

I'm glad you're trying to quit smoking. Smoking poses serious risks to the health of your unborn baby, if you light up while pregnant. So do products like Nicorette, a nicotine replacement therapy (or NRT), carry the same risks? The answer is no according to one study done by researchers in Denmark. This is the one and only study regarding NRTs and whether pregnant women who used them had a higher incidence of stillbirths. So I would caution pregnant women that this finding is not necessarily definitive, more research needs to be done to be able to say conclusively there's no risk to your developing baby.

Another caution I would give women who are trying to quit smoking and either trying to conceive or they're already pregnant is that NRTs may not be the answer. I've always been skeptical of these products, because you're giving your body what it's addicted to, so you stay addicted. It's like saying that you'll use a heroin patch to get off of heroin, or chew crack cocaine gum to get off of crack. (Yes,it's THAT tough of an addiction!) I suppose I couldn't argue with using them if you in fact succeeded in quitting, but most of the time patients end up using both the product AND the cigarettes.

My advice has always been to quit cold turkey. And do it EVERY DAY if you keep failing—at least you'll be smoking less. Also, in your household, EVERYONE must quit. If not, you're doomed to failure. Some people have better luck with Zyban, (also called Wellbutrin, the antidepressant). This pill keeps your neurotransmitter, Dopamine, elevated, which is the "feel good" neurotransmitter—the thing that makes your brain complain when it gets low. Withdrawal makes it get low, and low Dopamine is what makes you crave anything you're addicted to.

If your health care provider approves of this Category C drug, it might be better than exposing yourself to more nicotine.

Some tricks: train yourself to think to yourself, everytime you take a drag, "I'm constricting the blood vessels and oxygen going to my baby." Because you are. This is why babies of smoking mothers are smaller than normal.

Another trick is to do the babysitter test: Would you hire a babysitter who forces your infant to suck on a cigarette? Of course not! But isn't this what you're doing? In other words, don't do to your baby what you wouldn't allow a babysitter to do.

These are not reprimands, but little tricks you can play on yourself to help you stay motivated, because the cigarettes will certainly play tricks back, like enticing you to that one cigarette after your success of several days ("One cigarette can't hurt, right?"—that's the cigarettes talking.) Keep up the attempt and never give up. Give it up 1,000 times if you have to, but do it every day.