I'm just going through my second pregnancy. My first pregnancy was fourteen years ago and, sad to say, I did not cut down very much on cigarettes, herbal or nicotine. Perhaps I went from half a pack to seven a day, but this would not have been every day. I

The things that I DID do for myself were to ensure that I was VERY fit. Simply by walking five or more kilometres per day, it's surprising how fit you can become as long as you continue to do it until you are ready to give birth - preferably not to the point of labour but I was running late and knew the date that they would induce me. I also stopped drinking all alcohol except for the occasional glass of apple cider. Oh, and I certainly did not eat for two.

The end result was a perfectly healty baby boy who scored highly on the (not sure of the name) test that they run on newborns when first born and then five minutes later. He weighed one ounce under eight pounds, was perfectly formed, with no after-effects. After a few months, it was apparent that he had suffered little or no effects of being born to a smoker - the myth of smaller babies would appear to be just that, in my humble opinion.

Having read the literature these days and feel that that, at my age, I should probably be a little more careful as I'm not the young girl that did it last time, I will no doubt cut down my smoking to between two and five cigarettes a day at the most for the duration of the pregnancy and for the period afterwards whilst breastfeeding. Already I have gone off alcohol (again) and so don't feel I have to be worried on that score!

I wish you all the best, giving up smoking is the hardest thing to do when you don't really want to and are doing it just because you feel you have to or should. My best advice would be that when you succumb to the temptation, do not do it in public. If you are unsure of why, just give it a go when you are definitely showing and notice how people look at you - not nice at all.