to wonder how people can justify smoking during pregnancy?

[Archemedes]

I know this is an emotive thread, and I'm not talking about people who try and cut down slowly I'm talking about people who make no effort to stop.

How do people justify that?

Where I live I see alot of it and suprisingly its not mainly 'chavyy women' as people would think.

AIBU to wonder why someone wouldnt even try to stop?

everlong stress has been linked to high blood pressure and pre eclamsia which can result in stillbirth.

Generally people understand that keeping a mother healthy will result in a better outcome for the baby. Does that realy need to be pointed out?

Really? I don't read it like that at all. I believe that the mother and baby are equally important. I can't see where anyone has said otherwise - especially as not a single person on this thread has given support to a pregnant mother smoking. Not a single person has said it is right.

Sorry, that last post was in reply to everlong.

Study's linking stress to increased risk of stillbirth if anyone's interested

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CGMQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fm%2Fpubmed%2F18485167%2F&ei=_o9pT-ukF4uq8QPCvZ2TCQ&usg=AFQjCNHF15-f3yauWkZlXgRVA0Gg65uabQ

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CD4QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rcog.org.uk%2Fnews%2Fstress-causes-stillbirths-new-study&ei=_o9pT-ukF4uq8QPCvZ2TCQ&usg=AFQjCNGbARfzNH8xUzLEDygWoT2MbYihsg

If you go to moomins link everlong, there is a further link to answer your question.

There are a myriad of outside influences that make pregnancy dangerous for both mother and child. But people seem to only want to focus on the one aspect.

Sorry, I don't have a link as it isn't something I read on the Internet - it was a personal experience whereby two doctors, speaking on behalf of the defendant where I was the victim swore under oath that their treatment of me and subsequent stress did not cause the bad outcome of my pregnancy. Their reasoning for this was that there is no direct correlation between maternal stress and damage to foetus/miscarriage of pg. The advice from doctor and midwives re smoking and pg was a separate matter related to my stopping smoking when I fell pg with ds1 (which I did, albeit it felt extremely hard). sorry I can't be any more specific.

There may be no corrolation between stress and mc, but then the reason for many mc are unknown.

There are however links to stress, increased blood pressure and stillbirth.

everlong noone has disputed the increased risk of stillbirth due to smoking, so why would I need to link to that

lil I don't know if by bad outcome you mean the loss of pregnancy or problems with the baby in some way but I'm sorry for what youve been through and hope your ok

Thank you moomins

I think that the public health message of "give up or cut down on smoking during pregnancy, because it will affect the fetus" is being misunderstood as "the only important thing is not smoking in pregnancy- if you can't give up, there's no point in trying to smoke away from the baby after the baby's born".

My mother smoked during pregnancy, but I genuinely don't resent her for that, even though it looks like it did affect me. She was addicted, and very stressed.

I do resent her for the defensiveness over her smoking, denial over the potential adverse health-affects, and convenient conviction that anti-smoking campaigns are "a cover by the car industry". That wasn't down to addiction.

She never opened windows, because of "car fumes" and certainly didn't smoke through them. Today, she can't even manage to be considerate for half-an-hour. When I meet her with my children, I can turn away, turn back, and she will be smoking directly into one of the baby's faces.

I wouldn't feel the need to judge someone who drank or was over weight either.

Noone has said it's ok, what some of us have said is we wouldn't judge and that it's none of our business. Also being negative and judgemental towards those who are pregnant doesn't help them to quit, actually it can cause them to lie about it which means they won't receive any help.

For some reason people don't like that view point and are trying to imply that it means we don't care about the health of babys.

Which is utter bollocks

Hmm, maybe. Although being obese isn't outside the control of the mother, but you dont see (m)any threads "To wonder how obese people can justify TTC"

Or even "To wonder how people who are obese can justify being mothers"

I mean that would be horrible, a terrible thread to start.

But then I'm back to my original point/post here. I don't see the point of a thread like this. I don't see the point of purposely denegrating others, calling them names, saying they are selfish, disgusting, arrogant, vile, hideous etc. What on earth does it achieve?

And to answer the OPs question (not that I suppose it matters any more): They don't need to justify it. It's up to them. We all do things that others wouldn't do, we all think our own way is best (or we wouldn't do it). It's no-one else's business.

*one of the babies' faces.

MN needs an edit function...

I don't know tbj I think there's lots of information regarding the dangers of smoking around children, some people just choose to ignore it. My mil is one such person.

Most Hcps won't advise using anything during pg, however e cigerettes give you the nicotine without any of the other toxins found in fags. You can also get capsules with very low doses of nicotine and some that don't contain nicotine at all.

Some people find the act of smoking them even without the nicotine can help as smoking becomes a habit not just an addiction.

Some people are very easily demoralized, though. Once they've got such an idea in their heads, they don't go and look for information to correct it.

stillorsparkling AFAIK, an electric cigarette, is purely a personal nicotine delivery system. It doesn't affect anyone in the vicinity, and the smoker only gets nicotine.

That means no carcinogenic tar, no carbon monoxide, etc.

Who's had s go at people opposed to smoking? I think you've got it a bit backwards there

Are you trying to say that because I won't judge them as I know it doesn't do anything to help them quit my comments arnt as valid as yours?

Everlong, where has Moomin had a go at 'people opposed to smokers'?

I don't understand?