But there's just one thing that's been troubling you, nagging you, playing on your mind? You're a smoker! And you're worried about the effect that might have on your beloved and much anticipated offspring.

So what do you do?

Ignore the threat and hope for the best? Try to cut down until the baby is born? Or come to terms with how to stop smoking altogether?

?Either way,? you're likely to be reasoning ? ?I'm in for a tough time!?

Let's face it, as a mother to be, you're desperate to do everything in your power to protect and care for the beautiful little person that's growing inside you. At the same time, whether you care to acknowledge it openly or not, you're in the vice-like grip of that damned smoking habit!

It's a case of ?irresistible motivation? meets ?immovable addiction?.

So, like any good Mom or Mom-to-be, you do the right thing and research the true dangers of continuing to smoke.

You find out to your horror that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of pregnancy complications, premature delivery, low-birth-weight infants, stillbirth, and sudden infant death syndrome.

Some more delving and you come up against the worrying fact that babies of mothers who smoked during pregnancy have lower birth weights and that low birth weight is a leading cause of infant deaths, resulting in more than 300,000 deaths annually among newborns in the United States alone.

The bad news keeps coming. Babies unprotected from secondhand smoke after birth are at twice the risk for sudden infant death syndrome, and infants whose mothers smoked before and after birth are at three to four times greater risk.

?Enough? you reason. ?There's no way I can expose my baby to this kind of threat! I simply must work out how to stop smoking before the damage is done.?

But hold on. This is supposed to be a special time for you. You've got to keep your wits about you as you focus all your efforts on growing that wonderful little baby. The last thing you want is the distraction and stress of having to cope with quitting smoking.

What about the mood swings, sleeplessness, cramping of the muscles, cravings and coughing that you know will accompany the fight to dump the habit? What detrimental effect will you subject your unborn child to if you start on some regimen of pills, patches, or nicotine replacement drugs?

Like so many pregnant mothers who face the same predicament, this dilemma appears to have you headed firmly down a no-win ?cul de sac?.

Yet, mercifully, that no longer has to be your fate, thanks to some wonderful new approaches and methods that are available to deal effectively with the question of how to stop smoking.

It's true. Nowadays you can stop smoking easily, quickly and permanently and still manage to circumvent all the nasty side effects and withdrawal symptoms that are associated with giving up.

The secret to success is within your reach, far closer than you could imagine. Your very own personal belief system and frame of reference for what you think is possible and not possible holds the key to making the change that you know ? deep down ? you need to make.

That's right. ?Magic? pills, patches or drugs are not the answer. You and your amazing mind are ? admittedly, perhaps, with a little help from those who have been there, done it and designed the program!