to think "no actually, the stress of stopping smoking won't be worse for your unborn baby than you smoking"

[UphillBothWays]

I'm fed up with hearing this as an excuse for continuing to smoke in pregnancy! I've heard people say this in real life, on TV, and now Stacey Solomon is claiming her doctor OK'd her smoking too.

Yes, quitting smoking is hard, but don't claim it's better for your baby to be exposed to carbon monoxide, cyanide and nicotine fgs.

I would have a lot more sympathy if they said "I know it's awful and I'm trying my hardest to stop but I'm struggling and have slipped up"

i havent read all the thread/replies to the OP etc (its too late at night and frankly i CBA)but...YANBU

i HATE smoking in pregnancy! i had given up well before my pregnancy with DD and made DH give up too as the smell of the smoke on him was making my MS worse...people who smoke during Preg and make no efforts to quit ought to be ashamed IMO

my DHs cousin is 6 months preg and smokes. her excuse is she needs to smoke as its not as bad for the baby as snorting coke and shes "only" done that twice since getting preg as morning sickness has put her off

now im bitter about preg generally after 4.5 years TTC and 8 MCs but doing something deliberately to yourself knowing the risks to your baby is so frigging selfish and seriously riles me! i couldnt care less if its my business or not im still pissed off!

I figured there must have been some new medical finding to promt him tell me this'd

No your doctor was just a fool and a smoking apologist. Probably a smoker himself who believes the myth that smoking is a great and terrible addiction and trying to quit it is dangerous for the baby

You see, you quit without a problem for your other three! So quitting was not hard or dangerous. Yet some doctor told you it would be, so you didn't. Shame on that doctor for promoting such a lie.

Schrodinger - we all judge. It is a human trait. Some more than others but we all do it. Actually I think shame is a partial motivator for some women to stop, or smoke less, while pregnant so I don't see it as a bad thing that people judge!

On the news this morning- FIFTY years since the link between smoking and cancer was established.
So anyone getting pregnant in 2012 can hardly use the excuse of not 'realising' how toxic it is.

I don't think people start smoking unaware of how toxic it is, I think they start smoking when they are young and therefore invincible and foolishly believe that they will never become addicted. It can come as quite a shock to find out that stopping isn't as easy as you thought. It doesn't help when people go on and on about how nicotine isn't all that addictive and it's all in the mind, as this simply encourages people to believe that they can just dabble when young and stop easily when they need to.

I seem to recall that nicotine is a powerful and effective anti depressant so I wonder if the people who can't quit might be helped by taking an anti depressant? Might be worth a ponder.

I would have thought that the reality is far more that SS knows that she should give up, is trying to cut down but finding it hard. Then these pictures went in the press and she was forced to come up with something to explain them in a reasonable light. Therefore she or her publicist thought that it was better to make up some crappy, feasible story that looked better than making no comment. Or her GP has said something that could have been construed that way. we usually hear the messages we want to hear, despite what has actually been said

Well Shes on this morning later

Alouise interestingly Zyban, a medication now used to help smokers quit, was actually developed as an antidepressant. One of the side effects was to reduce the desire to smoke!

One can't have Zyban (or Champix) when pregnant but it's certainly worth considering otherwise.

A doctor will only prescribe anti depressants to a pregnant women if not doing so would be detrimental to her mh, ad if taking a theraputic dose carry a small risk of birth defects (as they so nicely put it) so it's unlikely a doc would risk swapping smoking with ad.

If something happened they would probably be sued

She's been dropped from Sleb Mother ofthe Year competition. As previous winners have been Kerry Katona and Katie Price my flabber has been truly ghasted.

She's actually so thick I can't believe anyone let her near a naked flame. People smoke. Some people do it while they're pregnant. They all know they shouldn't, but they do it because they don't really want to stop. They play the 'I'm only human' card and hope that it'll blow over; perhaps have a little public weep as well! But you have to learn that when you make cash out of being the nation's favourite mum you can't also be seen depriving your unborn child of oxygen and nutrients.

Please stop the slagging against Stacey. She's probably been told a few times that she's thick but in essence she doesn't seem to be a bad person at all. Maybe the comment was ill-advised but she doesn't deserve an absolute slamming just because she's in the public eye.

Boomer I disagree. She makes her money from being in the public eye, from being held up as an example of motherhood - Sleb Mother, the Iceland campaign etc etc.

If she is going to do that then she has to be seen to be behaving in a certain way.

All right, I do see your point Ali

I still think calling her 'thick' is just too easy.

Intellectually challenged?

Foetus poisoner?

Air polluter?

Dog abandoner?

But Moominsarecary, your job is to advise the mothers. I have two children, one with FAS and one who's birth mum smoked... a lot. My job is to look after these children (luckily one came to us at birth and his health problems are diminishing over the years... mainly due to the fact that we have encouraged him in sport and fed him the best diet possible... and I know this is the case). The other has no chance of ever recovering, she is damaged for life... we have got her for as long as we are able and then she will have to go into council care when we are too old and infirm. I didn't choose this... she didn't choose this. It's a massive bag of crap to hear about the 'rights' of pregnant women when you're dealing day to day, for the rest of your life with the aftermath

But I love them both...

My job was to treat the mothers, detox, stabilise on methadone. It wasn't to openly judge them, that wouldn't have helped with detox and at the end of the day if you can support someone in comming off what ever it is they are taking in a way that works you are also helping the baby.

If I'd judged and made people feel shitty they would have told me to fuck off and dropped out.

I know.. I'm sorry, this is such an emotive subject for me. I usually stay off threads like this because I get so upset. You do a much needed job that must be so frustrating at times.

Frustrating, upsetting. tbh the other patients do enough judging for everyone if a pg women didn't complete the detox. I don't do it anymore.

I'm sorry about your children. I hope your son continues to do will, it comes through in your posts how much you love them both and how much you want the best for them.

I'm not immune to getting upset about the baby's and children I've seen, I lost a baby recently at 20 weeks and spent a lot of time wondering why us. I didn't smoke, drink. Wasn't over weight, ate as healthy as the sickness would allow. But then life can be shit and unfair a guess

I am so sorry about your miscarriage. Sometimes it just happens, and to lovely parents, it's a horrid part of life but nobody is at fault .

I hope you keep doing the job you do, it's just so important. Thank you x