BOSTON -- Thursday is the Great American Smokeout. And one of Boston's top hospitals is on its own mission to get parents to quit smoking for their health and the health of their children. NewsCenter 5's Heather Unruh reported Tuesday on the $4 million program.

Terry DiJoseph believes the best gift she can give her 9-month-old son this holiday season is a smoke-free household.

“You never want to do any harm to your children and smoking is so harmful,” said DiJoseph.

After smoking for 14 years, DiJoseph quit when she got pregnant. One of her biggest supporters has been her son's pediatrician.

“He's so strong in his resolve to help parents become non-smokers and making sure that they stay that way. He had enough confidence for the both of us he would just repeat to me, you're not going back to smoking," she said.

“Because the pediatrician sees the parents over 10 times in the first two years of each child's life, that's a chance for consistent and repeated messaging,” said Dr. Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrician for the Mass General Hospital For Children.

Winickoff has dedicated his practice and research to convincing parents how harmful secondhand smoke is.

“Secondhand smoke is the No. 1 cause of sudden infant death syndrome,” Winickoff said. “We know that a parent smoking is one of the leading causes of a teen picking up smoking.”

Winickoff said a pediatrician's office is a logical place to motivate smoking parents to quit. He spent 10 years developing a smoking cessation program that will help millions of children grow up in a smoke-free household.

“It gives pediatric offices and pediatricians the information that they need to help parents quit smoking by giving them motivation to quit, giving them some quick counseling on how they can set a quit date, and martial their support system.”

DiJoseph said she would still be smoking a pack a day if it weren't for Dr. Winickoff and the program.

“I just think of him and how harmful it would be to go back and how difficult it was to stop,” DiJoseph said.