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?

No evelong, I agree, you haven't.

I just don't get why you won't address other posters who are calling on analogies with obesity and stress in pregnancy.

It seems fair to highlight these as risky behaviours for pregnant women alongside smoking.

I wonder if you will not do that because then it gets a bit silly. We, (at least most of us) would all get called under the microscope of suspect behaviours whilst pregnant.

Maybe then we would have to accept that this would make the pregnant body (not just the smoking pregnant body) a public body and up for general consumption and scorn? Maybe, if faced with this prospect, we might decide that this is not preferable and allow the risk-taking of smoking pregnant women to remain private and just keep our noses out of their business?

I'm happy to accept that I am wrong but just wish you would address it one way or the other.

Everlong, slight X posts.

I know someone who was hospitalised when giving up smoking . They had physical symptoms that were so bad the A&E thought they were in cardiac arrest.

Now I know that is extreme - and very rare I'm sure, but there are so many variables where smoking is concerned (how heavy, what kind, what strength, how they smoke, times of day and so on) that one person will never have the same reaction to smoking as another.

I have an interest in all this because my friend has recently trained as a smoking cessation councellor and is running her first (very successful) clinic. I'm very proud of her .

She opens the group sessions telling everyone that she is an ex-smoker, what she went through when she stopped and asks for other peoples experiences. Some of what she hears is astounding. One of her most sucessful sessions is for pregnant mothers (she is a dental nurse and the clinic is held at the dental centre - dental refusers tend to come out of the woodwork when pg!) and she is justifiably proud of her work with them.

Hi!
I smoked a grand total of 6 delicious fags during my pregnancy. I loved each of them, really I did.
I did not feel guilty at the time, and I do not feel guilty now.

Bloody hell everlong - I do wish you'd said that earlier! You are coming across as if only stopping is good enough - and the effort means nothing.

I find you very confusing. Your posts at 14:35 and 14:37 today are at odds with your post at 20:29 on Fri where you accused worra of justifying smoking in pregnancy, where actually all she was doing was making the point that being obese is also bad. Later on Moomin and Flange point out that stress is also bad, but again you twist their posts to suggest they are supporting/justifying smoking whilst pregnant.

Like I said, confusing and I much prefer the PARD.

But everlong - you're coming across as being judgemental regardless of whether someone has tried and failed, or whether they have not even bothered.

Example - Like I said, I went from 20 a day to 1-2 a day. I tried, I really did, but I didn't have what it takes to go that extra mile and I feel guilty about it. I am thankful that my children don't seem to have any bad effects from that but I will never know for sure.

Other example - Woman smokes 1-2 a day before and during pregnancy. She does not try to give up. Yet she is worse than me? No.

You either smoke during pregnancy or you don't - and that's where the judging in this thread lies.

How are you not poking your nose into other people's business when you have arrived at a scale of morality for smoking in pregnancy?

People who don't smoke - Bad
People who try to give up - Pardonable
People who don't try to give up - Scum

Too add, I don't have a vested interest here, I didn't smoke, drink or even neck a coffee in my pregnancies. But I don't like the high drama moralizing discourses around women's bodies.

People who don't smoke - good.

I smoked around two cigarettes a day (some days none at all) when I was pregnant (cut down from 10-15). I am not proud of it but I really struggled to give up but suffered pretty badly with my hormones and had a very stressful pregnancy and gave in to the craving. I managed to give up right at the end (at around 7.5 months) but started again when my daughter was around 7 weeks old as had very severe and long lasting postnatal depression and I am still struggling now trying to give up. For some people the addiction is hard to break and at times of stress the only thing to make you feel better is a cigarette. I love my daughter very much and did everything else "right" (eating healthily, exercising, no alcohol etc) during my pregnancy. I didn't smoke because I was selfish and didn't care and couldn't be arsed to give up, I smoked because I was stressed and am addicted. To be honest I wish I never started and will continue to try and give up until I break the habit. Life isn't always black and white.

Well no they haven't, quite obviously, so I give up. I don't know why you insist on doing this, really I don't.

Everlong just in case you actually mean that, and are not being deliberately obtuse again... "my reponses have always been regarding that" to that statement I say "no they haven't" for example when you said that worra was trying to justify smoking whilst pregnant, when she obviously wasn't. That had ^nothing to do with the OP and was a deliberate twisting of worra's words.

I like conversing with you, but not when you do this. It makes no sense.

Stillorsparkling. YY to your post, exactly.

Yes you said being over weight only affects the baby before it's born, although why that's any better I don't know. Also it's not true

And if you think someones a sock puppet why not just tell mnhq, why start a thread about it

It realy doesn't take much working out does it

I don't know who you believe is behind the sock puppet

But you obviously know there's at least one poster on here who matches your description

So if you arnt talking about this thread you should be more careful what you put

Probably why mnhq don't encourage trolling