I'm coming up on a minor milestone, at least for me and my fellow female quitters--2/15 marks 9 months since I quit smoking. In 9 months, I could have carried a healthy baby. That's encouraging for me, because one of the reasons I wrote down three years ago for quitting smoking was, "I don't want to be smoking when I get pregnant."

It was one of the horrors that my mom went through when she had three of us. By the time she got to my younger brother, she had quit smoking. She relapsed four years later (proof that you can never just smoke one again.) Then, she smoked for about a year, and quit... and she's been quit ever since. She has been off for 22 years and counting.

Nine months marks other physical changes, too, according to the American Cancer Society:

"1 to 9 months after quitting: Coughing and shortness of breath decrease; cilia (tiny hair like structures that move mucus out of the lungs) regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce the risk of infection.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp. 285-287, 304)

1 year after quitting: The excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker's.
(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)"