Can Quitting Smoking Affect Your Period?

Smoking impacts nearly every system in your body, including your menstrual cycle. It can cause heavier bleeding, increase pain, or in some cases even stop your periods altogether.

The encouraging news is that your cycle can normalize once you commit to quitting for good.

Interestingly, giving up smoking during your cycle may allow you to notice improvements sooner, making it easier to stay smokefree and helping both your menstrual health and overall wellbeing get back on track.

Let’s dive into how smoking — and quitting — affect your period, and how different phases of your cycle may influence your ability to stop smoking.

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Does Smoking Make Your Period Heavier or More Painful?

Menstruation is already a challenging time for many women, but for smokers, the symptoms can become much more severe. Picture your usual cramps and discomfort magnified several times over.

Research published by Reuters confirms this, showing that women who smoke, or have smoked in the past, often experience heavier bleeding and more intense pain compared to non-smokers. The more cigarettes consumed, the worse the symptoms tend to be.

This happens because smoking narrows blood vessels and decreases oxygen flow to the uterus, which increases pain levels.

If you began smoking at a young age, the effects could be even harsher. Women who started smoking before 15 are 50% more likely to suffer from chronic pain and heavy menstrual bleeding.

A 2020 review of 13 studies involving more than 25,000 women also found smoking worsens period-related symptoms.

Smokers are 1.5 times more likely to experience severe PMS issues like cramps, insomnia, depression, and irritability. For women with PMDD, smoking can even triple the severity of symptoms.

Can Smoking Cause Irregular Periods?

Yes — smoking can shorten your menstrual cycle and make it more irregular.

In fact, women who smoke heavily (over 20 cigarettes daily) are four times more likely to have cycles lasting fewer than 25 days compared to non-smokers.

Can Smoking Stop Your Period?

There’s no conclusive evidence that smoking completely halts menstruation, but it can disrupt cycles due to its impact on weight.

So how does smoking lead to weight loss?

Nicotine speeds up your metabolism by raising your heart rate, making your body burn calories faster.

It also reduces ghrelin, the hormone that signals hunger, so you eat less. On top of that, nicotine activates receptors linked to satiety, causing you to feel full sooner.

But this isn’t healthy weight management. Smoking-related weight loss indicates that your body isn’t functioning correctly. For a regular cycle, women typically need at least 22% body fat.

Being underweight interferes with hormone balance, which can stop ovulation. Without ovulation, a proper period doesn’t occur.

So if smoking causes significant weight loss or reduces body fat below a healthy threshold, it can result in missed or absent periods.

Can Quitting Smoking Affect Your Period?

Although nicotine may have caused some lasting changes and certain organ damage may be irreversible, quitting gives your body the opportunity to repair itself.

Many organs begin to heal after you stop smoking, and your menstrual cycle often returns to healthier patterns.

Can Quitting Smoking Delay Your Period?

Smoking can cause delays in menstruation, but there’s no solid evidence that quitting leads to late periods.

What does happen, however, is that when you stop smoking, your metabolism regulates and your hunger hormones function normally again.

This often results in some weight gain, which actually helps restore your period.

On average, women gain about 5kg over five years after quitting, with most of the weight added in the first few months before stabilizing.

This weight gain is a positive sign — it shows your body is working as it should.

Having regular cycles between puberty and menopause is one of the clearest indicators of a healthy, functioning body.

The return of your period itself is proof that your body is healing from the damage smoking caused.

If you do notice missed or delayed periods after quitting, it’s worth checking in with your doctor. They can help determine whether it’s a temporary effect of quitting or a different underlying issue.

Heavy Period After Quitting Smoking

Quitting smoking shouldn’t cause a heavy period.

In fact, experts agree that quitting smoking can alleviate period pain. When you quit smoking, your hormones are no longer impacted by nicotine.

Additionally, your blood vessels are no longer restricted, and the blood and oxygen flow to the uterus improves.

If you are experiencing heavier bleeds after quitting, check in with your GP.

When Should I Quit Smoking in My Cycle?

Interestingly, the phase of your menstrual cycle in which you quit smoking can impact your success in curbing the habit.

Research has proven that your menstrual cycle can affect your nicotine cravings, and you can take advantage of this to increase your chances of quitting successfully.

Studies suggest that women who quit in the first half of their menstrual cycle (the time between the start of their period and ovulation) are more likely to engage in addictive behaviours, such as smoking.

It is believed that the hormone estradiol (a type of estrogen), which promotes addictive behaviours, is higher in the first half of the cycle.

Conversely, in the second half of the menstrual cycle, the progesterone hormone is higher, which is thought to protect against relapse.

Another study followed 34 smokers; 19 women and 15 men. Researchers used functional MRI (fMRI) brain scans to deduce whether any changes in the brain that are associated with nicotine withdrawal fluctuated in response to hormone level changes.

The scan observed certain parts of the brain that help to control addictive behaviour. The results found that the brain structures responsible for nicotine cravings were in fact more active in menstruating women.

Researchers found that during the first half of the menstrual cycle — known as the follicular phase — there was less activity in the rewards centre and brain regions that promote good decision making.

The same brain regions were found to be more active during the second half of the menstrual cycle, during ovulation. At this point, the brain was more likely to support control over smoking-related urges and behaviour. ovulation can actually decrease the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.

Physical nicotine withdrawal symptoms typically last for a week, so it is recommended that women quit two weeks before their next expected period to take advantage of these hormonal changes.

Quitting Smoking and Periods: Getting Things Back on Track

Smoking can negatively affect your menstrual cycle in several ways. It may intensify symptoms of PMS and PMDD, as well as cause irregular periods.

Conversely, smoking may cause you to lose significant amounts of weight which can eliminate your periods altogether.

Quitting smoking, on the other hand, can positively affect your period. When you quit, your body begins to repair itself, and your bodily systems begin to function normally again.

Post-quitting weight gain may help to bring back your period, and the improved flow of blood and oxygen to the uterus may reduce pain.

Struggling to quit while pregnant or in the lead-up to pregnancy?

Let’s break down the effects of smoking while pregnant, the misconceptions around the justification of the action, and most importantly, how to quit smoking when pregnant. Of course, the ideal scenario is always to quit smoking before becoming pregnant.

How Smoking Affects Pregnancy

There are many risks to smoking, and these risks are transferred to the baby if the habit persists.

Smoking affects pregnancy in the following ways;

• Increased risk of abnormal bleeding during labour

Placental Abruption: When the placenta prematurely detaches from the uterus either partly or entirely. This can limit oxygen supply to the child and increase the chances of severe bleeding during pregnancy. If Placental Abruption is untreated, critical circumstances can lead to fatality for either the child or both the mother and child.

Placenta Previa: When the placenta attaches itself to the cervix, which can cause critical bleeding during labour.

Placenta Accreta: When the placenta (or a portion of it) becomes embedded in and joined to the uterine wall, it is known as placenta accreta. Placenta accreta can lead to excessive blood loss during delivery and third-trimester bleeding.

• Increased risk of Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI)

SUDI is the sudden and unexplained death of an infant under one year old. While guidance from the Department of Health states that instances of SUDI are rare and the risk of a baby dying from it is very low, they also note that, if a mother smokes during pregnancy, the baby is much more likely to die from SUDI than if you don’t.

• Premature labour

The result of a baby not reaching full term (39-40 weeks). Babies born before 34 weeks can experience challenges and, in some cases, death due to undeveloped bodily functions.

• Low birth weight

Whether the baby reaches full term or not, smoking during pregnancy can result in a low birth weight which can have serious health issues.

• Congenital disorders such as cleft lip and cleft pallet

During the 4th to the 9th week of pregnancy, the lip and pallet start to form. A cleft lip and pallet occurs when the tissue has not fully connected, leaving a gap. These congenital disorders can be corrected, but the baby may struggle to feed and could experience feeding difficulties if left unresolved.

• Damaged lungs and stunted brain activity

Smoking while pregnant stunts a baby’s growth, including the development of the lungs and brain; this could have lasting repercussions that continue throughout the child’s lifetime.

Misconceptions Around Smoking While Pregnant

No. 1 – ‘Quitting smoking during pregnancy will cause even more stress for the baby’.

• The damages of smoking far outweigh the repercussions of stress. The highest state of stress is in between cigarettes when cravings are at their highest. It’s important to remember that these cravings dissipate, and the stress starts to decrease the longer you stick with quitting.

No. 2 – ‘The baby is protected in your belly, and it’s not breathing air anyway’.

• Mother and child share the same bloodstream. A baby takes on around 4 thousand chemicals every time a mother has a cigarette while pregnant. It is the equivalent of a child trapped in a room full of second-hand smoke for 15 minutes.

No. 3 – ‘ Smoking makes for a smaller baby, and smaller babies are easier to birth’.

• While this statement may make some intuitive sense, the size of the baby isn’t the only factor that determines the ease (or difficulty) of the birth. A number of complications may coincide with a smaller baby, such as development issues, heart and lung conditions, and higher vulnerability to infection. These effects may just outweigh the potential benefits of birthing a smaller baby.

No. 4 – ‘Quitting smoking will make me gain weight’

• This may be true as seeking comfort from food can be an instinctive response to managing nicotine cravings. But the truth is, there are many ways to control weight or keep weight gain at a minimum, and almost all methods are healthier than smoking. Light exercise and adopting a healthy diet not only help control weight but are beneficial for the unborn baby.

No.5 – ‘My mother smoked as a child and turned out alright’.

• The effects of maternal smoking may impact the child in many different ways, and it’s true that some children show no physical or mental symptoms. But leaving a child’s life to the luck of circumstance may not work in everyone’s favour. According to the National Library of Medicine, a study conducted in 1997 clearly outlined that the rate of infant mortality was 40 % higher in women that smoked during pregnancy.

No. 6 – ‘I’ve been smoking for half of my pregnancy what’s the point of giving up now?’

• It’s never too late to give up smoking. Even if you’re in your third trimester or just days out from your proposed due date, every second counts.

No. 7 – ‘I’ll just cut down instead of giving up.’

• While cutting back will decrease the exposure to your baby and is a good first step if you’re struggling to quit completely, as mentioned above, just one cigarette is exposing your baby to around 4 thousand chemicals via the bloodstream. And to give your little one the best chance, quitting altogether is the best option.

If one of the scenarios above is similar to your current situation, read further to find out how you can quit smoking when pregnant.

It has been proven that quitting during the second half of your cycle when you are ovulating can actually help to prevent relapse, as the hormone that promotes addictive behaviours is lower than during the first half of your cycle.

If you’re planning to quit, time your quit date two weeks before your next expected period to make the most of these hormonal changes.

If you are struggling to quit or have experienced changes in your menstrual cycle while smoking or quitting, get in touch with a GP to discuss your symptoms. They will be able to determine why these changes are occurring and suggest treatment options.

Link Reference

• https://www.reuters.com/article/us-menstrual-pain-cigarettes/smoking-cigarettes-may-worsen-menstrual-cramps-idUSKBN0JN2KK20141209
• https://www.myhormonology.com/smoking-and-vaping-worse-pms-and-pmdd/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9916957/
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3997941/
• https://www.verywellhealth.com/changes-in-your-weight-and-missing-your-period-4105209#citation-15
• https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/anovulatory-cycle#what-is-it
• https://www.womenshealth.gov/menstrual-cycle/your-menstrual-cycle-and-your-health
• https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/managing-period-pain