The World Health Organization (WHO) is wanting to draw our attention to smoking prevalence in women. Smoking rates in women have climbed over the last couple of decades, adding to the already epidemic status of smoking around the world. There are roughly 200 million women smokers worldwide. It is estimated just over 17% of the women in the US are smokers.
Everyone knows that smoking is related to such horrible diseases such as lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and emphysema. Few know that smoking is a common risk factor for many other diseases as well, many of which apply strictly to women. Examples would include placental abruption during pregnancy, miscarriage, prematurity of infants, nursing difficulties and cervical cancer. As you might expect by looking at this abbreviated list, smoking has been linked to many health problems facing women. It is reported that cigarette smoking kills over 170,000 women in the US each year, alone.
Most smokers want to quit smoking and hope to quit before getting married, becoming pregnant, or some other life changing event. Unfortunately, most smokers try to quit smoking up to 7 times, before actually quitting. This is why smoking is viewed clinically as a chronic addictive condition. Of course at the root of this addiction is nicotine.
Many people try to quit smoking as casually as they picked up the habit. Healthcare providers and smoking cessation counselors will tell you this will only lead the smoker into a cycle of disappointment and relapse. Very few smokers even try one of the many stop smoking aids that are currently available in the marketplace today. This is why it is so important to visit your physician or other healthcare professional to discuss the many options available to the smoker. There is no shame in this, as smoking has been compared to cocaine and opium in regards to its addictive properties.
Quitting cold turkey only offers about a 3-5% success rate, while most of the current stop smoking aids will double that chance of success. When adding some kind of counseling or behavior modification program, the success rate jumps into the 20% range.
Many of the health related risks associated with smoking can be mitigated once the habit has been broken. The risks related to an adverse outcome during pregnancy are dramatically reduced. Fertility challenges can also be decreased in the absence of smoking. Of course, the lessened risk to the unborn children are also a wonderful benefit to stopping smoking. Then, there are the long term benefits seen in the usual form of improved cardiovascular and pulmonary health.
So go ahead and get some stop smoking help. It's not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of how powerful the nicotine addiction can be.
