AN EX-SMOKER who quit when she found out she was pregnant has been immortalised as a hologram as part of an anti-smoking campaign.
Trish Stringfellow, from Rugby, now a mother of a healthy nine-month-old boy, is championing the stop smoking message in
Nuneaton’s George Eliot Hospital Maternity building.
With a new-found passion to help other mums-to-be stub out their habit, she teamed up with Warwickshire County Council’s Stop Smoking Service to turn her into a hologram.
The hologram is now used as part of a device to help inspire pregnant mums to quit. The device is currently in Nuneaton, but in the coming months will move around the county’s maternity wards.
Trish said: “Quitting smoking is the best thing I could ever have done, and being turned into a hologram is both weird and fantastic.”
In Warwickshire almost one in five mums are still smoking at the time they give birth to their baby, putting its health and possibly its life at risk. The campaign advises mums-to-be that the biggest thing they can do to improve their own health, and that of their babies, is to quit.
Warwickshire County Council’s Director of Public Health, Dr John Linnane said: “The risks of smoking to your unborn baby are reduced to that of a non-smoker if you stop smoking before the 14th week of pregnancy.
“Smoking during the last four to five months of pregnancy has particularly harmful effects on your baby’s growth and health, so it’s still worth stopping even if you have progressed beyond the first few weeks of pregnancy.”
Visit www.smokefreewarwickshire.org or call 0800 085 2917 for more information on the Stop Smoking campaign.
