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You know what it’s like trying to nag a partner into giving up smoking. You point out the smell in the house, the smell on their clothes and in their hair and all to no avail. A smoking addiction is one of the hardest to give up even when the guilty party is willing but they usually find when they try to stop smoking, it just becomes the only thing they can think about.

If it’s you that’s trying to stop smoking you know full well that all your friends and family are right - that they are giving good advice and trying to help but how hard is it to quit? It feels like an insurmountable problem. Even when you know it’s blowing a big hole in your budget you still can’t seem to find the incentive to give up the dreaded weed. Well, try this for size.

For men and women, smoking decreases fertility and also damages the DNA that could cause problems with any developing embryo. This is something you need to consider long before you have children as it takes time to recover from even after you have given up smoking.

On the off chance that you have a gorgeous, healthy baby and you still haven’t managed to stop smoking, how about this little fact. A third of the babies whose parents smoke will end up in hospital before their first birthday with respiratory problems. This means you are inflicting illness and pain on that small, helpless baby that you have waited so long for. How is that fair?

Passive smoking also puts babies at risk of potentially fatal infectious diseases such as meningitis and blood poisoning. It has been well documented that the babies of smoking mothers have low birth weights and this immediately puts them at a health disadvantage. If the mother is a passive smoker because her partner smokes, the health of mother and baby are still put at risk.

These are not slight increases in the chances of your child becoming ill. Studies have found that children exposed to cigarette smoke in the first few months of life are 45% more likely to have health problems that have led to hospitalisation. If your child had a low birth weight, those chances increase to 75% and that’s not something that can be ignored.

The list of problems associated with small passive smokers include asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia which are all life threatening. Glue ear and allergies are other illnesses and discomforts that you could bring on your child if you don’t stop smoking. It is also estimated that 80 UK cot deaths a year are attributable to passive smoking.

Authorities have taken steps to educate people about the dangers of smoking but it hasn’t been enough to make enough people quit. The recent steps to stop it in public has helped in that many people have tried to stop smoking for the benefit of their social life. But parents need to understand the dangers of smoking around their children. In the home or the car are the worst places as the child gets a hefty dose of poisons to breath in every time the parent exhales.

If this isn’t reason enough to quit, then what will it take?

Health expert Catherine Harvey looks at some good reasons to stop smoking today.