Smoking Was Bad

Amanda was about 7 months into her pregnancy when things started to go wrong. She was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Doctors delivered her baby by an emergency C-section—a little girl who weighed just 3 pounds. The baby spent her first weeks of life in the neonatal intensive care unit. She was fed through a tube and received special care for premature babies.

Once home, the baby struggled to gain weight and got sick easily. Before her first birthday, she developed allergies and asthma, a serious lung problem that makes it hard to breathe. Breathing problems are more common in premature babies. Now, at age 7, the girl takes four medicines on a regular basis.

“I feel a tremendous amount of guilt for my daughter being born early,” said Amanda. “I knew that smoking was bad… I didn’t think it would happen to me. I didn’t think I would have a premature baby. I didn’t think my child would have asthma.”

To quit smoking, Aman focused on ways to relieve stress. “The stress definitely doesn’t go away after your cigarette. Whatever your reality is, whatever is making you want to smoke, that’s still there after you have your cigarette,” she said. Amanda used prayer, exercise, and distraction to handle her stress without a cigarette.

Aman hopes that sharing her story will help other people quit smoking, and the sooner the better. Her father, a smoker, recently learned that he has advanced lung cancer. He quit smoking, and he’s one of Amanda’s biggest supporters in sharing her own story with the world. She hopes her children will have the chance to get to know their grandfather.