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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:
seaweedandmarchingbands · 21/10/2019 09:34

I do think though that the resulting children from these pregnancies deserve some consideration not just a "well, they'll be taken into care".

And I have given the problem my full consideration. The choice is between them being taken into care because their mothers can’t look after them (which could easily happen anyway if their mothers are substance-addicted) and... well, what? You don’t have an alternative. So what do you want people to say?

Namechangeformeplease · 21/10/2019 09:40

*I don't know how to solve it, I've said that repeatedly.

I do think though that the resulting children from these pregnancies deserve some consideration not just a "well, they'll be taken into care"*

These children are considered. This is why SS accept referrals for pregnant women, and there are specialist midwives for addiction.

But short of criminalizing or detaining pregnant women it is not possible to enforce abstinence.

TequilaPilates · 21/10/2019 09:40

To think about what these children's lives will be like? To think about what life in care will be like? To think what their life after care will be like and to not be so dismissive as to say "they'll go into care".

What do you both want?

SesameOil · 21/10/2019 09:43

Women whose alcohol and drug consumption causes damage to their foetuses in utero are not typically a group with a lot of financial resources. I presume that is generally agreed. Suing people who don't have any money is usually a fool's errand. You end up with a judgement you can't enforce.

The whole thing costs money, courts and lawyers aren't free, and if it isn't going to be paid by either the addicted mother or the disabled child, it's going to be paid for in some way by the state. Those funds would be infinitely better used to assist the disabled children. I'm a solicitor so I suppose on the basis of self-interest I should be advocating for something that would bring more work into the profession, but it's still a really stupid and unworkable idea.

And the fact that all the ideas for anything more than feeling sorry for the children and upset about what's been done to them are all stupid and unworkable has to tell you something tequila. You still haven't been able to think of anything other than not being happy with children being damaged by their mother's behaviour when they were in utero. Neither am I. Neither is anyone. Then what?

seaweedandmarchingbands · 21/10/2019 09:45

TequilaPilates

What makes you think people haven’t thought about it? Nobody is being glib here. These are terrible choices, and we are discussing people with very difficult lives. The issue is: what is the alternative? You’ve got nothing so far.

SesameOil · 21/10/2019 09:50

If you actually want to do something positive about this, the lowest hanging fruit is to fund mental health services properly. So women are less likely to be struggling with drug and alcohol addiction when they conceive, because everyone is less likely to be, and so they can get proper help quickly when pregnant. It isn't a panacea, because not all addictions respond to treatment and counselling, therapy etc don't help everyone, but they do help some people and the cuts have meant not everyone who wants to access help can get it. This would be a start. It would be infinitely more use than saying we don't know how to solve it.

Passthecherrycoke · 21/10/2019 09:50

We’ve all thought about it. As PP have said, thinking about it is useless. It just makes you feel empathetic and outraged without actually doing anything

Moomin8 · 21/10/2019 09:52

I just can't understand why she would do that to her own baby.

That's because you're not her and you're not an addict. It's quite likely that her care providers know what is going on. It's really awful but her baby is never going to have a bright future even if her baby is removed.

TequilaPilates · 21/10/2019 10:00

I don't know what anyone has thought about, I'm just going on what is said on this thread. Earlier someone asked if women should just be allowed to harm their unborn children. 2 posters simply replied "yes".

I asked if someone here was doing anything to care for these children and got told that no, they would be taken into care and the state would assume responsibility.

So in all of these answers no expression of sympathy or consideration for the children only statements that a woman's rights are paramount.

So that's what I'm responding to. Why can't the 2 things be expressed simultaneously? Protection of women's rights but then the desire to improve, as someone said mental health services, plus the care system and the lifelong care that these children will need?

Why can't those views be expressed on threads like these, side by side?

It reads very much like only the mother's rights matter and nothing else.

Passthecherrycoke · 21/10/2019 10:02

I guess we thought it was somewhat assumed that babies being born poorly was a bad thing and didn’t need saying. Hopefully the answers from multiple posters have reassured you that everyone thinks about the babies also.

SesameOil · 21/10/2019 10:05

So that's what I'm responding to. Why can't the 2 things be expressed simultaneously? Protection of women's rights but then the desire to improve, as someone said mental health services, plus the care system and the lifelong care that these children will need?

They can. It's just that you hadn't.

And honestly, emoting about how we feel for the children is pretty meaningless. It does nothing. If you need discussion about the practical situation to come with a certain amount of hand wringing first, so be it, but meanwhile that changes none of the facts or practicalities. The answer to the question about whether a woman has the right to do something that causes lifelong harm to the foetus is still yes. The way to minimise this is to accept that and look at what support can be put into place, not indulge oneself thinking about how dreadful it all is.

TequilaPilates · 21/10/2019 10:09

I don't think that we should look at this as the woman has a right to cause lifelong disability to their child because that means that we condone it. If you have the right to do something it means it should be unchallenged.

This should be challenged. We should accept that women have bodily autonomy but we should also agree that no one has the right to do harm and so the aim should be to prevent that harm by trying to engage these women, providing addiction support services etc. Yes, acknowledging that we can't compel her to stop but we shouldn't accept that she has the right to cause harm.

nottodaysatanlucifer · 21/10/2019 10:15

It's not just the fact she's doing it during pregnancy... what about her other children?

You can report to social but they are useless most the time. 🧐

SesameOil · 21/10/2019 10:21

If you have the right to do something it means it should be unchallenged.

It really doesn't. There are lots of things that people have the right to do that shouldn't go unchallenged and couldn't possibly be. For example, we all have the right to vote for whatever political parties are standing candidates in our area, or not at all. But we'll get challenged in our decisions by lots of things around us: leaflets, adverts, canvassers. That's as it should be. The alternative would be not allowing any of those things.

Also tequila on the subject of thinking about suffering and expressions of sympathy, I haven't seen much evidence on this thread of you doing either for the women who suffer when laws are made preventing them from doing things that they would otherwise be able to do because they're pregnant. Women in the US who have been imprisoned for drinking alcohol, and fighting, or denied necessary medical treatment because of their pregnancy. Or the women who would suffer if attempts to limit our rights were introduced here. Because after all, we all know exactly what it looks like when we fail to accept the right of pregnant women to engage in otherwise legal activities.

Passthecherrycoke · 21/10/2019 10:26

“This should be challenged. We should accept that women have bodily autonomy but we should also agree that no one has the right to do harm and so the aim should be to prevent that harm by trying to engage these women, providing addiction support services etc.”

We already do this though. It’s nothing new

seaweedandmarchingbands · 21/10/2019 10:57

We should accept that women have bodily autonomy but we should also agree that no one has the right to do harm

Those beliefs are fundamentally in conflict.

ysmaem · 21/10/2019 11:05

You say this isn't her first pregnancy, does she still have custody of the older child? I would probably report her to SS not only for the unborn baby but for the sake of any other children in her care. She sounds like she spends the majority of her time either drunk or high.

TequilaPilates · 21/10/2019 11:07

Those beliefs are fundamentally in conflict.

I don't think they are.

Do you believe someone has the right to do harm then?

SesameOil · 21/10/2019 11:12

A good way to prove they're not fundamentally in conflict would be to tell us how they can be reconciled, and what that would actually look like in the real world tequila.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 21/10/2019 11:18

Do you believe someone has the right to do harm then?

I believe I already answered that question.

You can’t have both. You can’t have bodily autonomy but not have the right to do harm to something living in your body. This is where logic goes to die.

Passthecherrycoke · 21/10/2019 11:22

We all use rights to cause Harm. Companies producing weapons used in war have a right to operate in the U.K. legal framework. Cigarette manufacturers, those very alcohol manufacturers. All have a right to operate and sell there products which cause harm. I have all sorts of rights over my child which could cause them harm- the right not to vaccinate, the right to refuse medical treatment, the right to take them out of the school system there are so many examples.

Closing all these rights because they can cause harm would make us a country with no human rights.

The rights of the woman vs the baby are in conflict and there is no reasonable argument that can illustrate they’re not

TequilaPilates · 21/10/2019 11:23

Because you can accept that someone has bodily autonomy but not the right to harm someone else.

I cannot agree that a pregnant woman has the right to harm her unborn child (and I mean 1 that she intends to give birth to, not abortion).

Passthecherrycoke · 21/10/2019 11:23

But you can’t. Because you’ve failed to explain how that would work

Tableclothing · 21/10/2019 11:25

Tequila

If we were to accept what (I think, forgive me if I am wrong) seems to be your argument, that

"Women have a duty to protect their unborn children from harm. If women choose not to, the State can step in and force them to make changes to their bodies/behaviour for the safety of the unborn child"

How is this applied in practise?

Some scenarios:

  1. Mother drinks bottle of vodka a day. Should she be forcibly detained in a detox facility?

  2. Mother smokes 25 cigarettes a day. Should she be forcibly detained in a detox facility?

  3. Mother smokes 5 cigarettes a week. Should she be forcibly detained in a detox facility?

  4. Mother refuses to take folic acid supplements. Should she be detained and forced to ingest them?

  5. Mother declines an induction offered at 41 weeks. At what point should she have a forced induction/c section against her wishes?

TequilaPilates · 21/10/2019 11:29

Tableclothing

No, I accept that the state should not step in.

But I also think that we should stop saying a woman has the right to cause harm.

She may well have the right to drink and we acknowledge that harm may happen as a result but that to me is different to saying "she has the right to harm her child"