to not care if its her wedding/honeymoon, a pregnant woman shouldnt be smoking and drinking?

[biddysmama]

my friend is 11 weeks pregnant, just got married and been on honeymoon. at the wedding she was smoking and drinking and was smoking and(she isnt quitting) drinking on her honeymoon... her last baby stopped growing when she was pregnant and she was induced early. mayb iabu but i really dont like it :(

you're the one confused, it really is a very simple point, but I can't see the point of explaining it yet again. I dumbed it down enough for you but it still appears too difficult, I wouldn't want to be called patronising again.

It is about the law and it is about choice, those two points interact, however right is inherently subjective.

Using my recent birth again part of the reason the Dr supported me was because it's my body and my right, even though there's a potential catastrophic outcome it's my body and my right to choose for me and for my then unborn baby. If I wanted to make a decision now that had the same potential outcome they would stop me.

Who is going to stop a woman legally smoking? Who is going to stop her legally drinking? How would we enforce it? Section every smoking or drinking mother under the mental health act? Lock her in prison?

And no, you're not in your rights to get into a car drunk but I think that statement sums up this thread! Rights are laid in law not your morals.

I smoked while I was pregnant. I was a heavy smoker before I fell pregnant and cut down to one and half a day.
I was in no way in the mind set of, its my body so ill do what I like.
Everyones morals, judgements, opinions are different. I hated the fact that I felt the need to smoke, was totally ashamed but at the time, nothing else worked.

Legally they have a right to do it, legally everyone else has the right to condemn it.

Freedom to act, or the supposed relativity of morality, is no reason why people cannot make moral judgements about the actions of others.

If one of my friends was smoking while pregnant I'd tell her to have a word with herself. There is no difference between that and blowing smoke in a baby's face.

Nobody forced anyone to read this thread, if you don't like it, stick it in your pipe and smoke THAT.

Women do have the "legal right" to smoke or not when pregnant and yes it is thier "choice". However - when you are pregnant you have a repsonsibility to your unborn child and the choice you make should be influenced by that.

I do find people lilke MsTeak banging on about a womans "choice" more than a little patronsising and frankly irritaing. No one is saying there should be squads dispatched all over the country to rip ciggarettes from the mouths of pregnant women - they are saying that is not a good, or positive thing to do during pregnancy.

I would also challenge her continued use of "choice". I believe most women who smoke when pregnant do not make an active "choice" to do that. More likely they would much prefer NOT to smoke but for whatever reason are not able to break their ADDICTION to nicotine. MsTeaks insistance that women are making an active and sacred choice is just naive. Are you saying addiciton is a choice that people make - Addiction ISN'T a choice.

DO you really think most women who smoke when pregnant say - well I COULD give up anytime really easily but I CHOOSE to smoke, or do you think they would say "I would like to give up but its too hard / Im too stressed etc." Even if you do get the odd pregant woman who doesn't think there is much wrong with smoking pregancy, it is possible if not probable that she has not been fully educated on the risks she is taking and therefore again you cannot saying she is really making a "choice" if she does not have all the information.

I really do beg to differ that most pregant women who smoke would say they choose that. I also do not belive for one moment anyone would say that smoking during pregancy is a positive thing or something that should be encouraged.

Given that - I cannot see why anyone would try to defend it. I would be interested to hear if any pregnant women on here who are still smoking are greatful for MsTeak defending thier sacred "right to choose" or if they just think she hasn't got a clue about smoking and the difficulties involved in giving up and find her as patronising and mis-guided as I do.

Rant over.

I've never smoked a single cigarette in my life.

My objection to this thread is the overuse of the word "should"I'm trying to find a brilliant quote that fits here but not having much success.

I'm not going to tell anyone what they should think because it's not my place anymore than it's your place to tell a pregnant woman what she should do. I don't agree with smoking in pregnancy, I hate smoking full stop and having lost a baby doing everything right I hate seeing women outside the hospital in their ted stockings smoking but it's their right to do that and I'll defend that right. Alcohol is different it's safe when drunk in sensible amounts and I'm not going to look at a mother drinking a glass of wine or a pint and extrapolate that she drinks to excess. Some experts, and I wholeheartedly agree, are calling for the alcohol guidelines to be scrapped because sensible women don't need them and those that aren't sensible aren't going to listen to guidelines anyway. It also goes back to "should" or as the BBC put it "women are only allowed..." like there's someone to stop me drinking more than they think acceptable.

I did use the word "should" when I said a womans choice "should" be influenced by her responsibility to her unborn child. I mean it in the sense of a reccomendation or the most ideal condition not as a legal stipulation

if you wouldnt mind pointing out whereI said either active or sacred...if it was insistant it must be more than the, um, 0 times that I can see.......?

Ooooh so you think dont think a womans right to choose what she does with her body is more important than whatever the choice may be? And you dont think thats an active choice... OK. You do bang on about it to the point you make it sound like some personal sacred cow tbh

You're still dictating how you think women's should make choices. You're not the only one to use the word should it's even in the title.

No I don't care what other women's choices are, especially when they're legal. I can hardly claim to care about other women making potentially risky choices when I made one with worse potential outcome and quite a high risk of it.

... Yep, it's moved on from "my degree is better than your degree", onto "my interpretation is correct, yours is pants, so ner ner ner".

A research paper published in the Lancet last September found that women who drank one-two units per week had babies with improved cognitive function. The response from the college of midwives was that they acknowledged the benefits of drinking small amounts of alcohol through pregnancy but couldn't trust women to know how much was too much so their recommendation would continue to be to abstain

The WHO currently puts a limit of 4 units of alcohol per week for pregnant women.

no im not dictating anything. Just saying in my opinion smoking during pregnancy is not a positive thing

Well duh. Well fucking done for working that one out. You still haven't mentioned why you care.

That's different. You managed that without the word should. I've said exactly the same thing in this thread.

I have said that several times and i already said on several posts its not something that directly affects me. you're the one who cares because you are so bothered about the rights of other women to "choose" things. why not just concentrate on your own choices instead of worrying about other peoples? no one needs you to defend their choices or their right to make them. believe it or not, women can do things all by themselves and don't need any help from the patronising. you defending my rights as a "woman" is about as appealing as the bnp defending my rights as a white person. please don't do it - it's embarrassing, unecessary and I feel tainted by assosication. ta.

Yeah, cos feminism is sooooo unnecessary now.

I didn't return to this argument earlier by the way because arguing with illogical people makes my blood pressure skyrocket and I have to eschew all personal pleasures for the sake of the poor wee foetus I'm the martyr guardian of.

why am I so bothered about the "rights of other women to choose things"?

are you fucking kidding me? I'm a pro-choice campaigner in a country where abortion is illegal, and work as a womens advocate. There are places in the world that women can't choose anything.
And there's you with all your choices and you clearly don't give a bollocks about anyone else.

You feel "tainted"? I feel tainted being the same gender and even species as someone so disgustly self-involved. What is wrong with a women so dismissive of other womens right to choose?

Thanks MsTeak. Being mobile I wasn't sure how to respond without giving myself texters thumb! TimeWasting too :)

I'll stick with "what they said"

If we allow the rights of another human being to be taken away, where does it end? If women are not allowed to drink or smoke in pregnancy how long until other choices are banned? Until we don't need to give consent to a section? When drs can force us to go through whatever procedures they feel necessary for the baby? Be very careful what you wish for when you wish away the rights of another human being because yours could be next.

Still I'm going to chuckle over the most patronising way someone has ever accused someone else of. Seriously. I love it! "I'm going to attack other women and anyone who dares defend them and call them patronising."

That post has made my month in hospital, thanks I needed the laugh!

I am sure women all over the world will sleep easy tonight knowing you three are on the case.......

how nice it must be to be so complacent, knowing your rights have been hard fought and won by others. And yet so smugly insistent that others don't deserve the same. I'll sleep easy, you sure as hell shouldn't.

Of course they deserve the same. I am just not sure how your brand of "help" will secure them

My brand of help? You mean the actually doing something useful rather than bitching?

What have YOU done to further womens rights?

Just a quick FYI, and I'm sure it's already been pointed out. Pre-eclampsia is thought to be an auto-immune response and rejection of foreign DNA (I.e., your baby's DNA!) Rather than a result of pie-eating.