AIBU? WWYD? Smoking issue around my baby!

[Champagnelady]

Hello....I am genuinely not trying to aggravate any smokers with this but I don't know how to handle this one.

Firstly, I know I have extreme views on smoking. Both my parents have smoked my whole life - around me and my siblings. It's very much a smoking family. I have never smoked and I never will. I hate smoking even more since my dad passed away specifically from smoking related cancer. It makes me angry that they subjected me and my siblings to inhaling their smoke for years, especially when one sibling had cancer as a child. I don't understand why seeing my dad pass away, horribly, was not enough to scare the living crap out of my mother and make her stop. She knows to some extent how I feel about this but we don't have a relationship where we can be totally honest - she doesn't handle it well.

My husband and I are due our first child in a couple of months. We don't live close enough for my mum to 'pop' in. It's a flight away so when she visits she stays with us. She doesn't smoke in the house - she tries to smoke less when she is here, but inevitably she does still smoke and goes in the garden to do so. I can smell it when she comes in the house and I really don't like it. I think partly, now that everywhere in public is non smoking and I haven't lived at home for many years I probably notice it more. She will of course come to visit when the baby comes.

When we go to see my mum we stay with her. My dad always smoked in the house and smoked a lot more than my mum. Mum smokes outside most of the time, and the house has been decorated from top to bottom. On a recent visit I kept my suitcase closed. I didn't even open it whilst in the house. Yet still, when we left I had to wash everything and leave the case outside for two days because everything smelt of smoke. All the lovely baby things she bought I had to wash to get rid of the smell.

I don't know how to handle this - there is no way on this earth I am staying in that house with my baby if that is how my clothes smell when we come away. It's been 3 years since my dad passed away and still the smoke lingers. I don't want my mum anywhere near the baby when she's had a cigarette. If I can smell it, the baby can breathe it in.

I know my views are extreme and I don't really know how on earth I'm going to tackle this with my mum without feeling like I'm being really mean.
And where do I draw the line? One sibling has a child, and they live close to my mum but my brother smokes (outside his house, not inside) but still...

I'm sorry this is so long but any advice very welcome but please don't tell me to ignore the smoking thing because I just can't.

Thank you!!

Never been a smoker but remember waking up in the morning with the boak when I smelled my hair from the previous night out. Same with clothes, my god they stank.

I just don't get the logic "whay are you worried about the dangers of second hand smoke because there are so may other toxins in the air".

As parents most of us focus on what we can control (kids not wandering out into traffic, falling into swimming pools, being around smokers) and not on what we can't (what comes out of car exhausts, freak accidents).

I would be the same as OP, not relishing the thought of a tiny new born baby being subjected to the smell of smoke. Luckily very few of my friends / family smoke so it was never really a problem.

In the end the children make up their own mind. My aunt smokes heavily, in her house and my DD (4) comments on it loudly ("I hate Auntie XXX's house, I hate Auntie XXX, she smells.")

If you can smell the smoke, then there are still toxic chemicals lingering. I don't want to alarm people, but whilst on a placement recently a paediatric consultant told me that whilst cot death numbers have dropped since the back to sleep campaign, in every single case of cot death he had dealt with the baby's parents were smokers, and that was regardless of whether they smoked in the room with the baby or not. So smoking is now the single biggest risk factor for cot death. And I am not a drama llama, I am an ex smoker and my mother smoked whilst pregnant and when I was a child. Arguably it did me "no harm" but sadly it clearly does to some babies.

Op -Join the group ASH. The campaign against smoking and health and march to enforce your beliefs and get your mum to go along.

So smoking is now the single biggest risk factor for cot death.

Can you back that statement up with a link to any evidence Suddenly? Only I can't even find that on the SIDS website

in every single case of cot death the parents were smokers

Are you taking the piss? Do you know how you are going to make non smoking parents who are devestated by cot death feel with that statement?

I smoke. Outside only and you can't smell it in my house. I say that because my mum has the nose of a bloodhound and would go mental if she got the slightest whiff
My colleagues comment I never smell of smoke.
However I wouldn't hold a baby unless I had washed my hands, not had a cigarette for an hour and I would prefer to have a clean top on

info about smoking and health sign up here

This is the place to voice your concerns regarding cigarettes and second hand smoke.

Well, that's what I was told by a consultant paediatrician who specialises in respiratory medicine. I don't know if this was based on evidence or his experience, but he said that babies sleeping on tummies used to be biggest risk factor, but now smoking is. Just relaying what he said as it stuck with me. If I see him again I'll ask him for studies. He did concede that thankfully SIDS is now dramatically rarer. He puts this down to babies sleeping on their backs and more awareness about overheating, but he also said that people becoming more aware about smoking around babies could also have played a part. But he said that in all the cases he has seen in his career, at least one patent has been a smoker. Sorry if I have offended anyone, as I said I am an ex smoker and was just lucky I had managed to give up before having dd. my mother smokes outside and then holds dd, but she is 18 months now. Was just saying that it is not unreasonable for the op to ask her mum to take necessary precautions between smoking and being around her child, that's all. It is not just being dramatic.

TantrumsAndOlympicGoldBalloons who wrote that fucking bullshit statement? My sisters baby was a cot death case and she and her partner never smoked. Whoever you are don't write a load of fucking bollocks like that to make your point. How disrespectful! Twat.

And he told us this to illustrate that it is important to educate parents that chemical residues from cigarette smoke on people's hair/breath/clothes is still significant. That is why it is not advisable to co sleep if you are a smoker. And as far as I'm aware that advice is common place and so I presume is evidence based. Again sorry didn't mean to shock or offend, just wanted to pass on what I had been told and defend those posters who had been labelled as dramatic by being vigilant about smokey smells etc.

I don't think your views are extreme.
Attitudes and public opinion changes . A few years ago, attitudes to drink driving were very different. Some people thought they could handle a few drinks and then handle a car.
Some people think they can smoke what they like, not have their health affected or the health of those around them. Your mum seems to fall into that camp. However, health advice and evidence now suggests that old smoke is much more dangerous than previously thought and that newborn babies should be kept well away from not only passive smoke, but all the remnants in clothes.
This is YOUR baby and YOUR chance to assert how you want things to be in the future. Your baby, your rules.
Your HV may have a leaflet outlining the dangers which you could show to your mother.
I know one new mum who wouldn't let her father hold the baby until he changed his clothes after smoking. Stipulate your rules politely but firmly.

SuddenlyMadameGlamour well now you know a case where it wasn't and yes that does fucking offend. Tell your paediatric consultant that as well. That is one consultant in the whole of the UK and I don't really think you should be using that on this thread. When you've spoken to EVERY paediatric consultant in the UK come back and post that information.

Kelly, I'm so sorry about your loss. I didn't say all cases are caused by smoking but that one dr told me that all cases he had seen, which were few as it is thankfully rare, smoking may have been a factor. My post may have been badly worded and I am sorry if I have offended you or anyone else.

She smokes outside only, i cannot see why you are worrying.
She doesn't smoke in the house, only in the garden so aslong as the baby isn't right next to her outside there will be no harm done.
There is nothing to worry about

Looking at fsid the chances go up by thirty percent but that's parents smoking in the actual house and the baby being exposed to 1-2 hours of smoke per day.

They suggest smoking outside etc etc.

So he MAY have only personally seen smoking related ones but that's far from the whole picture, just his own personal experience

I don't think anyone on this thread is suggesting for a second people should smoke near & around babies.

Shagged My point is that people would do better to campaign for clean air and emissions controls than get het up about perceived but not proven risks of harm from the smell of smoke lingering in clothes or hair. But that would mean giving up their cars or extending congestion zones....

I, too, would like to see the evidence regarding parents smoking and SIDs preferably taking into account social class, deprivation, urban environment, housing conditions etc.

In the 60's, when front sleeping was introduced, to the shock/horror of many grannies who thought the baby would suffocate, mothers were told that it was safer for babies than sleeping on their backs. Presumably there was evidence for this at the time? Now, putting a baby down on its front is considered tantamount to infanticide and the number of SIDs has dropped. But has the link actually been proved or is it a coincidence? As far as I'm aware, they still don't know what SIDs actually is, what actually causes it.

Would genuinely like to know.

Sorry just to be clear of course a factor not proven cause sorry worded that a bit badly.

I know the SIDs advice is now very clear about sleeping on the back but other areas of the advice have often been quite conflicting.

I often hear that it is strongly advised not to co-sleep in order to avoid SIDS, while I imagine this is linked to overheating, and I know that the cause is unknown, I'm very sceptical of lots of the advice given, particularly if there IMO long term evidence, like the kind we can now see in relation to sleeping on the back.

I don't think it's wise or acceptable for people to be posting comments about what causes or may influence SIDS, especially as the actual medical community is still uncertain, I don't see how someone on mn is going to know any more.

*there is no long term evidence.

There are things our children come into contact with that we can't control traffic fumes etc but we can control how much time our children spend in contact with relatives who smoke and houses which have been smoked in. It's all very well saying she will smoke outside but the damage in the house has been done it takes years and years before all traces are gone if ever! Now as serious or trivial as anyone thinks it is it is important that people remember that the respiratory rates of babies are much faster , their lungs are much smaller and the concentration of toxins in the blood is much higher and more dangerous than in an fault. Their brains are still growing and smoke whether first second or even third hand can affect this. Babies also spend more time on the floor with their skin on the carpet their noses and greater exposed skin areas closer to the carpet, they are laid permanently up against something to support them and fabrics containing residue ( clothing included) are mere centimeters from
Their eyes nose and mouth all of which are access points to blood stream or respiratory system. Just ask yourself this- if this was something you could control, if there was any ANY chance this could HARM your baby would you do it???? It kills adults ffs anyone remember Roy castle??? Passive smoking killed him.

Adult not fault

My dad is currently dying of a smoking related cancer.

He has never smoked but his mother did his whole life and he spent a lot of time in smoky environments through work.

He has been told that this is likely to be the reason.

So if I choose to have no one smoking around my children then that's my choice. I can't control car fumes in the street, but I can control that.

putting a baby down on its front is considered tantamount to infanticide Crikey! Exaggeration much! My two would only sleep on their fronts, all other risk factors were eliminated and so that's how they did it.

You can call the police now if you like!

Well! It's all quite heated round here... Anyway, as I've said upthread, I have all sorts of rules regarding family members smoking round my PFB DS, including that he never sees anyone he loves and respects doing it. I was asked to clarify how long I would thus shelter him and the answer is, as long as I can I suppose, though the whole bittersweet parental thing is that when you do it properly they become independent. So, as long as possible, though I hope that it will seem habitual and the normal way of doing things even when he is fully aware of what is going on.

WRT the whole, "yes, but is it really bad?" debate, I'm happy enough to follow the SIDS advice, even if it is coincidental and not causal that it has reduced cot deaths by 75%, including the advice about the one hour time limit, even though that might be responsible for exactly zero of that reduction, because it is the best advice we have and it is evidence based. Someone upthread said that it was against advice to cosleep because of SIDS, this is not the case, btw, cosleeping is as safe as not cosleeping if the parent is not under the influence of any drug, and is not a smoker.

Even if the immediate health benefits are negligible, however, my PFB silly smoking rules would still stand. Smoking is much more common amongst individuals whose parents smoked so I assume seeing people you know and love doing it makes it more likely that you will do it (even though there are many anecdotes proving that parental smoking can cause children thoroughly to reject smoking). I'm playing the long game with DS; I don't want him to associate smoking with anything positive, and I'd rather he viewed it as outlandish and out of keeping with our general values. I don't believe myself able to shelter him from the fact that members of our family smoke but I do hope he sees the way that collectively we deal with it means that even our most committed smoking family members are deeply ambivalent about it and don't want him to see them doing that.

I don't know why the rights of smokers are being defended over the rights of parents to keep their child safe in accordance with the most up to date medical advice? I actually don't think smoking confers rights, anyway; rather it is a privilege in the way that it is a lifestyle choice you opt into. I think it facetious to compare the choice to smoke with the choice to have children; giving up smoking would hardly equate with not having children in order not to cause your family undue pressure about their 'lifestyle choice'.

It is awful and sad that so many people have lost loved ones to smoking related illness; I'm genuinely sorry to hear that is so. Such an experience might lend you insight into the potential devastation smoking can cause a family, or offer a context to the vehemence with which you hold anti-smoking views. However, I don't think that having done so makes you especially able to state that the SIDS advice is either good, or silly and hysterical, nor does it in anyway mitigate the effects that smoking has had on other posters or the way that they see it affecting their view of smoking. It's rather unstylish to use the fact that you know someone who died of smoking related cancer to question the validity of others who've formed an opinion because they know someone who died of cancer. IMO, obvs.