Leigh Black
Leigh Black, 32, has one very good reason to keep off cigarettes – the arrival of baby Kayla in September 2008. Although Leigh had already cut down to three cigarettes a day when she found out she was pregnant, she was finding it hard to kick the habit completely.
That’s when a referral to her local Stop Smoking advisor in Edinburgh helped her kick the habit completely – being shown a ‘tar jar’ of brown mucus, similar to what was collecting in her own lungs, convinced her that she should give up cigarettes and concentrate on keeping herself healthy. She and her partner, Russell, decided to quit at the same time; Leigh got one-to-one support whenever she needed it from the Stop Smoking advisor, as well as weekly mobile phone calls and texts to see how she was doing. The impending arrival of a much-wanted baby was sufficient motivation before the birth, but what about afterwards?
“I felt like we’d been given a gift in having Kayla, and I just didn’t want to risk anything affecting her. I knew that stopping smoking around her would be one of the best things we could do, so after I had my last cigarette we also threw out all our ashtrays. Now everybody who comes here knows that they can’t smoke in the house!”.