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Original poster

Drinking drugs and smoking whilst being pregnant?

454 replies

pennygirl26 · 19/10/2019 13:11

I know someone who is due her baby in Dec. She only found out a few weeks ago she is pregnant.

She had very openly continued to smoke cigarettes and joints,but has been drinking also saying its not anything worse than what she's done in the past 6 months. She's also still taking coke every now and again. What can I do about this? I feel sick every time I see her. The other night I caught her buying a half bottle. It's just so dicgusting I don't know who to go to as I don't want her to know its me.

OP posts:
CoffeeorBust · 22/10/2019 04:04

Is this for a private stay in the rehab or is this what it costs the government funded rehab?*

My bare-bones underfunded ward costs £350 a night. And you would need considerably more staff for your idea.

Loaf90 · 22/10/2019 04:05

Report to social services

SesameOil · 22/10/2019 07:57

A very useful post coffee.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 08:07

Thank you so much for your post, Coffee. It puts it so well: ideologically driven, not driven by what will help these women as patients, or even provide the best outcome for their babies. I was sick of explaining it.

Tigger001 · 22/10/2019 15:02

Yes coffee although is disagrees With my suggestions of a solution, it is a well articulated post coming from a point of experience.

SesameOil · 22/10/2019 15:54

It is, although it's not as if one needs direct experience of managing a mental health ward to be aware that putting disincentives in the way of people accessing services potentially deters them, or that people who don't want to be in a place sometimes have to be physically restrained to keep them there.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 15:59

No experience is necessary to make these points, as seems evident from the fact that the people without experience made most of them before anyone with experience contributed. These are obvious things that can be predicted by anyone using their common sense.

Nat6999 · 22/10/2019 16:08

My partner was an alcoholic who carried on drinking when he was told that it would kill him. I begged for him to be sectioned but as the law stands he knew his own mind & therefore couldn't be sectioned. I know he wasn't pregnant, but he was a father of 2 small children ( 3 if you count my ds) How many men are using drugs & drink when they get women pregnant? Wanting to lock up pregnant users of drink & drugs will never happen, it is discriminatory for a start, do we really want to go back to the last century when pregnant women were sectioned when their only crime was being pregnant?

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 16:19

Nat6999

I’m very sorry to hear that, Nat. But yes, some people do want that. They want being pregnant and ingesting any substances that are not recommended to be evidence of being incompetent, or a criminal.

TequilaPilates · 22/10/2019 16:50

I don't want pregnant women to be locked up.

I also can't find it within myself to say" fine, disable your child for life - it's your right".

I get that the 2 situations are incompatible.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 16:54

I also can't find it within myself to say" fine, disable your child for life - it's your right".

Nobody said fine. But it is their right. It is also the responsibility of the State to offer sufficient support for people not to feel they need to do this. Addiction is an illness. Would you talk like this about someone ‘harming’ their child because they had HIV? They are ILL.

TequilaPilates · 22/10/2019 17:21

But it is their right

I don't agree that anyone has the right to inflict damage to another human being, so on that we shall have to disagree.

Would you talk like this about someone ‘harming’ their child because they had HIV

Not sure what you mean here? Would I feel the same if they passed HIV to their child during pregnancy? If they knew they had it and didn't follow medical advice, then yes I would feel the same.

tigger001 · 22/10/2019 17:22

Nat6999 that sounds like an Incredibly difficult situation. I would never want it to go back in centuries and it to be a crime to be pregnant.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 17:27

I don't agree that anyone has the right to inflict damage to another human being, so on that we shall have to disagree

There is no disagreement. It’s not a matter of opinion but of fact. As the law stands, it is their right.

And you are missing the point about addiction (look up - there it goes).

HIVpos · 22/10/2019 18:06

Would you talk like this about someone ‘harming’ their child because they had HIV?

If someone has HIV but refuses to take medication to protect their unborn baby, then after birth refuses to give their baby medication to prevent them contracting it, or suppress it if they have contracted it, this is actually a safeguarding issue, and steps can be taken to prevent this happening, which might mean removing the baby. In this case, the authorities have to act in the baby’s best interest.

It is incredibly sad, but some women do get an HIV diagnosis during their pregnancy, which is a massive shock on its own, never mind being pregnant at the same time. Great efforts are made to work with the mum to ensure best possible care for the mum and the baby.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 18:10

But HIV isn’t an illness in which the symptoms include the refusal to follow medical advice. Addiction is. But addicts are still ill. And that is what is being missed here, on a very blinkered level. I am not saying an addict who cannot care for their child should not be informed that it might mean the removal of the child if they do not improve the standard of their care. I am saying that the illness of addiction itself must not be criminalised, or treated as an absence of medical competency.

TequilaPilates · 22/10/2019 18:11

seaweedandmarchingbands

It may well be the law. I don't have to agree with it.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 18:12

TequilaPilates

No, obviously not. But you are factually wrong to say they don’t have the right when they do.

TequilaPilates · 22/10/2019 18:15

No, obviously not. But you are factually wrong to say they don’t have the right when they do.

I don't believe that any law says "as a pregnant woman you have the right to harm your unborn child*.

It might well say you have the right to ingest potentially harmful substances but I'm pretty sure it's not written anywhere that you have the right to harm the baby.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 18:24

It might well say you have the right to ingest potentially harmful substances but I'm pretty sure it's not written anywhere that you have the right to harm the baby.

It’s like arguing with a piñata.

TequilaPilates · 22/10/2019 18:42

It's an important distinction to make.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 18:45

There is no distinction. If a thing isn’t illegal, you have the right to do it.

SesameOil · 22/10/2019 18:47

Not really. It makes fuck all difference in practical terms.

But honestly, if people want to doublethinkedly stamp their feet in the face of logic, as long as they don't advocate for expensive and deranged policy solutions because of it, I can cope with that. Though I'm still going to point out the massive reasoning holes.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 22/10/2019 18:48

Obviously with civil law (trespass etc) something might not be strictly illegal but blah blah.

In this case, there is nothing to stop the woman doing it. She has the right to do it. We just wish she wouldn’t.

SesameOil · 22/10/2019 18:50

As a general principle in English law, if something isn't specifically forbidden you have the right to do it.