First Lady featured in spots to get pregnant women to quit smoking

Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack will appear in TV spots urging pregnant women to quit smoking. Three women governors and the wives of sixteen governors are taking part in the public service campaign dubbed “Great Start,” but Mrs. Vilsack says she has a particularly personal reason.She says both her mother and her mother-in-law smoked, and missed a great deal of their children’s lives. As a teacher she knows the value of education. Vilsack says a personal memento makes the issue of smoking pregnant women especially meaningful to her.A letter from her mother, pregnant with an older child, telling her husband in the service that she was drinking a Coke as she wrote, and smoking. The PSA’s began airing this week, and though Iowa’s First Lady admits that standing in front of a TV camera terrified her, she got lots of help. The spots offer a “Quitline” for pregnant women, 1-866-66-START.