if you think its ok to have a glass of wine a week in pregnancy is it ok to have a cigarette a week?

[Beatrixemerald]

Just asking opinions, not sure what mine is really as was teetotal for years pre pregnancy so didn't need to think about it, but I was a smoker until I found out I was pregnant.
I just wonder if we are as a society far more tolerant of drinking vs smoking and this translates through to pregnancy as nhs advice seems to be to avoid both.

I don't smoke but i do drink. During pregnancy i had hardly any alcohol but on social occasions i had 1 glass of wine or champagne as i was a guest at several weddings whilst pregnant but always with a meal. I don't suppose 1 piggy would cause damage, i have friends who smoked the whole way and would you believe the children were big(8lb+) and have never developed asthma! I never did and had 6lb babies with asthma by age 7! Go figure that one!

ciggy

My mum had a guinness a few times a week because she was told in the 70s that it was full of iron!! I and my 2 siblings are healthy with no major health problems. Relax. The stress will do more damage.

Meerka

Like fuck will we make smoking or drinking in pregnancy illegal. Totally different to smoking in a car eith children who are BORN and have personhood. A fetus does not have personhood or rights snd legaly it cannot.

Of course when i was pregnant i wanted to do the best by my baby,as do mpst woemn but you cannot legislate that. Women have the right to bodily autonomy end of, anythjng else is a very slippery slope.

And yes we dont hear men being berated for drinking or smoking etc when there is plenty of evidence to show it damages sperm.

You are comparing the worth of a sperm to an embryo?

The health or not of that sperm can and does damage an embryo.

SuggestmeaUsername - I feel that women aren't always taking enough responsibility as grown ups to protect their's and their babies health so need to face up to it even if the truth hurts their feelings

You know nothing and your feelings are irrelevant on this matter. The important thing is to save lives and improve health. If you have another agenda take a look at yourself.

Writerwannabe83 - Are all the 'it's fine to smoke' posters as nonchalant about women who choose to take drugs during pregnancy too?

Who are the 'it's fine to smoke' posters?

Women who take drugs during pregnancy don't 'choose' to, how incredibly naive. They need the best help available and the assurance that they can approach services without judgment or stigmatisation, just like smokers. Nothing else works.

a woman who chooses to smoke because her attitude to her unborn baby is that it doesn't have any rights so she can do what she likes and to hell with the consequences to the baby.

Who is this woman? Does she exist?

PacificDogwood, JellyDinosaurs for brilliant posts.

It is massively massively important that women are in charge of our own bodies even when we are pregnant (actually, especially when we are pregnant, given that this is a major place where there are attempted infringements of our rights as human beings).

Most women want to do their best by their babies when pregnant, should we be removing pregnant women's autonomy over their own bodies for the sake of the very small number who are unable to do the same? Bloody hell no!

I have used the word unable deliberately, as anyone who chooses to drink, smoke or take drugs heavily in pregnancy is clearly in the grips of an addiction. Help should be provided to such women to give them and their babies the very best chance, but ultimately women have to come before their babies in law.

It's an interesting point about the effect of smoking, drinking and drugs on sperm. Men aren't berated for the possible effects of their lifestyle choices on their sperm, which can and does affect the health and genetic make up of the foetus.

How do you even legislate that anyway? Make everyone piss on a stick before buying a pack of cigarettes?

You prosecute women for drinking/smoking/taking drugs in pregnancy. It's already happening in the US and there was a test case in the UK very recently, thankfully it was thrown out.

Of course I have compassion for the babies who are harmed by women making poor choices in pregnancy, but we simply cannot allow women to become simply vessels for another life the moment they become pregnant.

Actually, thinking about it, loads of pregnant women take drugs - I was offered pethidine (and declined it) and my sister had diamorphine when we were in labour. I had a glass of wine in the bath when my contractions started but then I didn't have any pain relief so am I more or less selfish than women who do? And for my second birth, I had gas and air - was that better or worse? Would you arrest me for the very small amount of wine but say that a stronger dose of a much more powerful drug was ok? Why is that? Gosh, this is going to be a really complicated law to draft!

(Or would you accept that actually, they're both fine and neither option is damaging to the baby?)

What's happening in the States is frigging terrifying!

If a child is harmed for life because of the pregnant woman's careless drug use, there should be some form of sanction against her, if only to deter her from doing it again.
But how to do that without having another negative effect on the child, I don't know.

why not bring back the death penalty? that'll teach her. And stop her taking drugs in her next preg. And deter other women.

Oh wait, it didn't influence the crime statistics at all.

Btw, the US might prosecute for smoking in preg but they are often considered to have unusually high levels of child abuse for a developed nation (wikipedia; www.everychildmatters.org/storage/documents/pdf/reports/can_report_august2012_final.pdf and Unicef). It's a real pity all those people who get upset about child cruelty don't actually get out there and help the people who are struggling at a point early enough to make a difference.

Let's start chucking women in prison for having miscarriages and stillbirths too, because that happens in some nations too. HCPs can hardly ever prove the cause of damage to an unborn child, so where would they law draw the line? IMO the line is exactly where it should be at present.

actually maybe we should simply ban alcohol and smoking for all women who menstruate. We could have post-menstrual women doing blood tests to check for cleanliness. Even better, implant every woman of childbearing age with the contraceptive patch and only take it out when they've passed a parenthood test and regular drug/smoking/alcohol tests.

I did say "careless use", which would rule out genetic factors.
And I also said to avoid further effects on the child, which jailing would certainly cause. In short, although the idea has some attraction I am agreeing that it is impracticable.

that alcohol is a substance that gets absorbed into the blood stream, and 100% of what you drink gets delivered into the bloodstream

No, your liver processes what you drink and filters many "toxins".

Your lungs don't.

Something has been niggling at me about these debates and the way they play out - there is huge emphasis on the risks to the child if the mother smokes but very seldom are the much bigger risks to the mother talked about.

Half of all smokers will die from smoking-related disease - 100,000 deaths each year in the UK. They will lose on average 10 years of life. Smoking rates have only just dipped below 20% so 10% of the entire population of the UK lose a decade of life due to smoking. These are people who are already here and who have full human rights. The majority will have started smoking as children. 93% of quit attempts - with the best support available - will end in failure.

This is not a moral issue it's a health crisis.

I care a lot about the health of unborn babies but far, far more about the health of women who are already here. They are the ones bearing the brunt of the risks of smoking (along with male smokers of course). But yeah, lock them up that will really help. Who gives a shit about them anyway as long as they don't damage any more unborn baybees.

Sallyingforth your idea has no attraction at all unless you deeply dislike women and think they don't matter in their own right at all.

unless you deeply dislike women and think they don't matter in their own right at all.

So Plenty, you think an adult has a perfect right to risk causing permanent harm to a child in order to have a few months of optional pleasure.

To use your own turn of phrase,
"unless you deeply dislike children and think they don't matter in their own right at all."

optional pleasure

You don't have a clue.