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"

The placenta is great at filtering out undesirable chemicals. My DD is a lovely normal child, it doesn't cause brain damage like alcohol or hard drugs.

Seriously, judgey pants must be so high you need to surgically remove your wedgies!

I gave up smoking the year before we started trying to conceive but by god it was difficult. I don't judge smoking mums particularly harshly, clearly it is better not to but none of us are perfect.

I welcome the no smoking restrictions in public places and I'd rather cigarettes were illegal to be honest, I hate the mixed messages about yes they're terrible for your health but oh there they are in the newsagent, supermarket etc..

Totally agree with NorthernLurker.

northernlurker that mcdonalds eating pregnant lady, that was me! i had HG and could not eat one single thing that stayed down, had not eaten for days (well had, and it came back up). Let me tell you something...Mcdonalds burgers...they are NOT coming back up. no way . So, I was the lady stuffing several of the things down her throat (but just the once, as it was so vile i wish I had been able to throw it back up!)

Ginger - the purpose of your placenta was not to allow you to smoke like a chimney. The placenta exists to support and nourish the pregnancy. It is not a get of harm free card.

brb shitting in your Brita filter, it's cool 'cause it's good at filtering innit.

Bollocks. I agree with northerlurker. Smoking is vile, even without children and pregnancy involved.

Pavlov - a Macdonalds donut and coke got me through the vomiting in my first pregnancy when two days a week I had to take an early morning bus in to the city. Pregnancy sickness excacerbated by travel on a bumpy bus left me in a heck of a state. Certainly some nice porridge would have been better for me but I tried that and threw up in a litter bin. Not good.

I never said I smoked like a chimney. There are far more harmful things you can do do a child in utero, FFs you lot judge over Greggs sausage rolls so I'll sleep well over my choices.

I have smoked 15-20 a day for 14 years. I had never tried giving up. I found out I was pregnant on Tuesday and I haven't smoked since then. It has only been 5 days but I am so proud of myself.

DP and I conceived in the first month of trying. I just cannot bear the thought of smoking and poisoning my little bean when we have been so lucky so quickly.

I hope I never smoke again. I don't want my child growing up thinking it is a normal thing to do.

ew porridge. could not do that either. and even if i wanted a fag, the smell alone would have sent me hurling. DH smokes and goes outside anyway, but when i was pg, he had to go to the end of the yard, a way away, with the back door close, and then not come near me for half hour as the smell literally made me hurl. but, so did garlic, body odour, the cats smell...

but, not a macdonalds . or Dettol...

To wander off on a tangent, do you think they put something in McDonald's burgers? I'm another who found it was one of the few things I could keep down while suffering morning sickness (the main one being brown rice with soy sauce ).

I am now slightly worried that this is part of a global conspiracy for world domination achieved by getting foetuses addicted.

I am rather relieved that the nearest McDonald's is so far away that my DC (5) have only ever had three in their lives.

OP, YANBU. I take issue with the popular definition of "stress" . It's a term so easily thrown about without no real understanding of what stress actually constitutes. Thinking that it would be better to keep smoking to avoid exposing the baby to "stress" is not in the same league as the stress endured by an unborn baby whose mother is raped or in a war zone or facing famine or floods etc. "Stress" is not having to cope without cigarettes...

... or alcohol for that matter. I'm sick of hearing pg friends telling me that they allow themselves a glass or two of wine in the evening to help them relax / avoid stress. You fancy a glass of wine, fine have one, it's your choice. But don't tell me you're doing it for the good of your health and therefore that of your baby.

The problem with smoking is that no-one actually really knows how damaging it is to an unborn baby for obvious reasons. I don't know how anyone can be sure that less than 5 is fine.

Whilst I agree with the OP's sentiments I am actually fed up of people criminalising smokers. It is not actually a criminal activity and people on here need to remember that when they spurn their vitriol. Also, northernlurker, the complications of obesity in relation to pregnancy are well established. Can I start with pre-eclampsia (which can be fatal), gestational diabetes (which can be dangerous for the baby), toxaemia, low birth weight, also later in life there is a higher risk of said child developing diabetes, congestive heart failure and obesity themselves. I would argue the complete opposite - food can also be poison and is just as important. If you don't believe me type pregnancy obesity complications into google and see what happens.

Well done GardenPixies. Congratulations. :o You're right about children growing up and normalising seeing people smoke. It shouldn't be normal.

it is some kind of lead, i think, it sinks to your gut and stays there. mine is probably still there.

i could eat these burgers, salmon (tiny bit) and one boiled potato, slooooowly. with zero sauce, no oil, butter, salt, pepper. nothing.

or, on occasion in the middle of the night, randomly, peanut butter on crumpets.

on topic. when i was pg with dd, i gave up smoking instantly. but i did have two cigerettes, rollups, while i was pg. 1. when my mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. 2. when her cancer was given terminal prognosis. I felt shit on both occasions, and I cant remember but unlikely smoked more than half. I remember on both those occasions 'feeling' the smoke going into my baby (not literally, but visually, and it was enough for me to stop.

I did have a midwife say this to me, twice. Once when I was pregnant with DD, and once with no3 son. They asked if I was a smoker at the booking visit and I said I'd stopped as soon as I found out I was pregnant with DD (unexpected) and as soon as we started ttc with no3 son. She sort of at me as if to say "yeah right, course you've stopped" and then said "oh well if you can that's great, but if you can't, don't beat yourself up about it, we usually tell people not to try and stop while they're pregnant because of the stress involved"
Luckily, I was always able to stop when I was pregnant, not sure quite how, but I managed it, and the instant they were born the cravings arrived and I went back to freezing my tits off at the bottom of the garden it. I found it so much harder to stop on my own account after hospital stays and heart surgery when it killed me was revived by paramedics though. I could do it for my children but not for myself somehow
I try not to judge if I see a pregnant woman smoking as I've been there and I know how hard it is to stop. People vilifying them and name calling and tutting don't help, they either can stop or they can't, and I don't think anyone who has never smoked can begin to understand how addictive it is. Ex-smokers tend to be the mopst outspoken against other people who do still smoke, it's the "if I can do it, you can" thing I think, and it's just not true. Nicotine is a vile vile evil thing, and some studies have found it to be more addictive than heroin.
I do judge and hoik if I see one drinking though... I can't help it, I just do.

Sunshineandbooks - brilliant post earlier.

I smoked through both of my pregnancies, am I proud? Not really, I feel pretty shitty about it as I think most pregnant smokers do.

But do you know what? Life ain't perfect & neither are the people who live it - judge away, I'm sure it makes you feel perfectly lovely when your knickers get really tight around your crotch.

& well done all posters who have given up when TTC or pregnant but don't use yourselves as poster-girls to grind others down.

.

Yes shockers i agree with you actually. personally i believe that being a woman is a complicated thing from an ethical standpoint, because so many of your choices can impact another human life.

But abortion is legal, and smoking is legal, and smoking in pregnancy is legal... and so is drinking in pregnancy, and being overweight in pregnancy, not taking folic acid in pregnancy... the list goes on and on.

our culture believes a woman's body is hers to do with as she pleases. so why get all het up about smoking when there are FAR worse things you can do to a foetus, without even bending the law? it just seems a weird thing to worry about tbh, in the grand scheme of things.

She's obviously just as stupid as she comes across.

I laughed when she was quoted as saying (re being pregnant) 'I can?t wait to be a normal size again ? and eat prawns.'

So she's giving up prawns for the sake of her unborn baby but not cigarettes .

Well I was having difficulty finding time to smoke 20 fags a day so I gave my £100k job up and with the £26,000 I was given I invested in weekly deliveries (to my new free house with swimming pool in the garden)of gregs sausage rolls, so do not have to spend time cooking. Obviously the kids need a hot meal on a weekend when they don't get their free dinner at school so I let them go to the shop on their own to buy pot noodles. I'm too busy smoking to pour the boiling water in so I let the kids do it themselves.

Somebody reported me to social services about the 10 year old going to the shop two minutes walk away unsupervised, after they went on mumsnet for advice and only took notice of the people who were horrified by the level of neglect of said ten year old going to shop. Luckily I was ok as social worker didn't find out about unsupervised kettle use, I mean if kids taken into care where will I get the money to fund my lifesyle choice.

pombear it is harder to give up than heroin. The cycle of change model of coping with addiction to heroin (and other drugs) was originally designed around cigerette smokers.

And, it is harder because, one of the biggest changes a heroin user has to make to change their lifestyle, is their social circle. they often have to move away from the peers who will pull them back in, or from those familiar triggers for cravings.

Cigerette smokers have it around them all the time, their friends, in the streets, in shops behind counters, the habits of before after a meal/with a glass of wine. While smoking is much less socially acceptable, it is still legal and therefore very much part of our every day life. You simply would not expect a heroin addict to be able to stop using heroin while continuing to be surrounded by it.

On that basis dieting must be the hardest thing of all to do. You still have to eat something and you can't get away from people shopping/cooking/eating.

Yet people diet successfully. Nothing is insurmountable. A person has to want to do it though.

Onelittlefish - I'm aware of the possible complication of pregnancy arising from obesity thanks. Smoking has no possible complications. It is a intrinsically harmful process being the inhaling of toxic substances for no benefit whatsoever other than self gratification. It's a fallacy to compare the two at all.

Congratulations gardenpixies I think that people who are arsey about their "right" to smoke during pregnancy are just deluding themselves and are CHOOSING not to prioritise their baby over their own happiness in the here and now. I gave up the day I got my BFP and it wasn't easy (been smoking over 20 yrs on and off). I just can't compute this "stress" that would be of more danger to the child than breathing in the toxins of a cigarette? It might be bloody miserable for a while but I found just concentrating on the excitement of growing a new human being was a huge help in my motivation.

It can be very very hard but I don't believe it's impossible.

I wonder if Stacey Solomon will get the old heave ho from the Iceland campaign?