Parents should not smoke in order to discourage their kids from smoking. A child is more likely to smoke when they have been raised in the environment of a smoker.

If Mom is healthy, then her child is more likely to thrive, more likely to have a better quality of life and, ultimately, better able to provide for his or herself.

It is better to not even try it than to endure the ramifications of either quitting smoking or dying.

Every year, more than 1 million children are left motherless and vulnerable because of maternal deaths, and children who have lost their mothers are up to 10 times more likely to die prematurely than those who have not.

I was never directly pressured by peers, but by surrounding myself with others who were experimenting with smoking provided a certain false comfort.

On average, African-American women are 4 times as likely to die from pregnancy related complications. Latina women are at 2 times greater risk.