Women should be prevented from drug taking in pregnancy

[Caterpillarsleftfoot]

I have just come back from a holiday with my nephew's who were exposed to drugs in utero (adopted). I'm also a school teacher who has taught drug and alcohol exposed children.

Seeing the challenges they face made me think why on earth it is allowed.

If you hurt your child every day when they are 6 months, 2 years, 5 years old then they are removed from your care. Why are you allowed to hurt an unborn baby? If a woman is known to take drugs or daily alcohol, then why is she not taken into a protective custody in a hospital/ secure unit for the remainder of the pregnancy to prevent her harming the child?

Do you know how many times you have to drink in a pregnancy to place the child at risk of FAS? Once. Just one single time. So there’s no enough about it.

If you really want to have an opinion on this stuff start by educating yourself yeah?

I am curious as to how this would supposedly work.

Much of the damage caused by alcohol and drug abuse occurs during the first trimester, when a lot of women don’t even know they’re pregnant. Women with chaotic lifestyles are already less likely to seek out appropriate medical care during pregnancy, and the threat of being locked up isn’t exactly going to encourage them to seek it out. So what then? Random stop and piss on a stick tests for any woman believed to be of reproductive age, followed by a comprehensive drug and alcohol screening if the test is positive? What if the women states an intention to abort? Does she get taken to lock up until she does?

What about women that aren’t visibly pregnant? Do they need to be tested before buying alcohol, be it in a pub, restaurant or supermarket? What about screenings for women wanting to buy sushi, or pâté, or anything else that isn’t advised in pregnancy? What about women on life saving teratogenic medications? Will they be forced to stop taking them?

Yes, let’s do exactly that. Sometimes there isn’t a good solution, and you have to settle for the least shit one.

No one can answer how it would actually work.

Funny that.

The only way it can "work" is by removing women's rights.

I'm opposed.

Interesting idea. Foetuses do have some rights, well, the right not to be aborted unless for medical reasons after 24 weeks. At that point they seem to recognised as "human" to the extent that they are generally considered viable if born. So, if they have the right not to be aborted, could there be other rights afforded to them to ensure their protection?

I'd probably support some kind of legislation around alcohol and drug use in pregnancy, but it would be tricky to enforce as others have said, and it would probably have to be after the 24 week stage.

I guess it would work in the same way that you are breath tested for carbon monoxide in pregnancy at midwife appointments and have various blood tests. If something sinister was flagged up, women could be offered support in the first instance.

Anyone doing this during pregnancy has essentially failed step one of being a mother: protecting your child and putting their needs above yours, so I'm not overly sympathetic towards them. But I would be concerned about it extending to other less harmful things, oh that lady had a McDonald's, oh that lady ate too much sugar etc.

Surely this creates more risk to a baby not less

The reality of addiction is that a woman who is going to drink or do drugs during pregnancy is going to do that regardless of any blood tests or other tests

So all it would do is mean that those women do not engage in pre natal care and possibly hospital/midwife attended births

That could increases the risks to babies of oxygen deprivation, hypothermia, sepsis and a whole host of other issues that could occur

I'm sure the children born with health issues because of their mothers drinking or drug addictions will disagree with this dumb overused phrase 🙄

Fuck off trying to push a narrative where it is ok to impinge in a women's bodily autonomy OP.

Teacher my arse.

For the third time on the thread, I was born with congenital disabilities and I still believe in a woman's right to do what she wants with her own body

Some posters keep talking for people like me on this thread but not actually listening to what I, as one of the people they are talking about, actually think

That shows a far greater contempt for people in my situation than those advocating for women's rights

@Insommmmnia yes it's a great point, however woman that don't engage antenatally are referred to SS as I understand it, so there would be some follow up and support offered in that regard.

I'm not a social worker but during my legal training I spent some time on removal of children and was involved with cases where the local authority was requesting removal at birth where the mother was drug or drink addicted and not accepting support/attending appointments. One woman missed one of her court dates but was found by the police practically unconscious due to her drug use on the street (she had a home).

Her child was removed at birth, rightly so, but will have to deal with a heap of issues due to their mother. It seems strange that if I inflicted that harm on an adult in the street I'd be jailed, but she will face no consequences (other than the removal of her child, which isn't a punishment, but a necessity to keep them safe).

I was on prescription medication when I got pregnant and I was advised not to stop taking it by my midwife. Research around drugs and pregnancy are extremely limited and in many cases it would cause extreme stress to the mother to ban the use of drugs. Stress has been proved irrefutably to transfer to the foetus. I had a good pregnancy and my child was born with no health issues. If I was demonised and banned from taking medication I needed then I would have had an extremely stressful time. Things aren't black and white, and if you are suggesting punishing the mothers in some way then the babies will also be punished.

That is the advice now and I won't argue with medical science BUT my mother had me in a time when there were no restrictions on drinking or smoking while pregnant (she was advised by her doctor to have a Guinness a day for the iron) so its surprising there weren't more people born in the 1950s and earlier with FAS. When I was pregnant in 1979 I think pregnant women were warned about smoking, I didn't smoke but when I gave birth there was a smoking room on the ward where the nicotine addicted new mothers went to smoke. There was no warning about alcohol although I wasn't a drinker beforehand and could barely keep anything down anyway. A midwife at ante natal told us if we had an occasional sherry while breast feeding it would help the baby sleep.

As I say, medical advances have been made and my own daughter was rightly careful not to drink at all even while trying to conceive. but 'one drink' has to be scaremongering or there would have been much more FAS than there is.

Women can only be referred to SS if the pregnancy is known. The issue is that some women would conceal their pregnancies which wouldn't help the foetus either.

You know this, do you? Unsurprisingly, there are very few people, family or otherwise, who want to take on the care of a baby, brain damaged by drugs and alcohol in utero. Most are looked after by foster carers. But let's just keep on allowing drug addicts and alcoholics to keep producing brain damaged children because, according to you, someone will take them.

Yes @Mojoj how dare I suggest another viewpoint. Apparently you KNOW that newborns are condemned in life, nonetheless. No. Most babies are not abandoned. And FAS isn't necessarily something that would deter a baby's father, relative, or adopter or foster carer.

Funnily, I didn't even offer an opinion one way or another

I'm sure some of the girls would appreciate not growing up in a society where they are essentially a walking womb and nothing else because they've had their rights taken away.

How would we know they weren't engaging antenatally if we put them off engaging prenatally?

If I register a birth does someone get notified?

Because otherwise it seems I could do a home pregnancy test, not inform the doctors, give birth at home and continue onwards, and so long as I didn't register the child at the doctors it would be years before that child would come to the attention of the authorities

Meanwhile they have missed out on immunisations and all sorts of check ups

Exactly.

The bodily rights of the adult women are more important than those of the fetus until it is born. Unfortunately there's no way round this. You are honestly advocating that we lock up pregnant women we suspect of taking any substances or drinking?? Thats patently ridiculous. And its completely unrealistic because the most obvious addicts will be put in much danger if you just force them to go cold turkey.. you can die.. suddenly withdrawing from heroin or alcohol if you are a full blown physical addict.. so what woukd the law be then when the medical professionals have to wean the women off? Are they now breaking the law?
And as for people who arent obvious addicts how on earth would you police that? So many issues here.. im sure other commentary have listed all the ways thatbus a ridiculous dystopia idea that wouldn't actually have any positive effects, far better than I can.

They don’t have rights. Some legal protections after a certain gestation, but not rights.

It’s in the first trimester that the vast majority of the damage is done, when a lot of women don’t even know they’re pregnant. When they do find out, knowing that they risk being detained ‘for the good of the baby’, it’s highly likely that they’ll avoid accessing any prenatal care throughout the pregnancy. Which means putting the very babies some posters are seeking to protect at even greater risk, let alone the women. What happens then?

@SouthLondonMum22 absolutely! But you cannot conceal the birth of a child forever. At some point the birth will need to be registered, they will need to be registered with a GP, a school etc. So there are plenty of occasions where questions can be asked and referrals made. Lots of the women I was involved with were having their second, third, fourth child removed - unless they are a first time mother there's a good chance that these women will already be known to SS.

It wouldn't stop it from happening, in the same way that being a rapist doesn't stop rape from happening, but it might provide some deterrent and reduce the number of instances.

The best thing to my mind would be to increase the support with criminalisation being a last resort.

Shooting heroin in your veins everyday whilst pregnant is not a right ffs

Sorry, I was supposed to say "in the same way that rape being illegal doesn't stop rape from happening" 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don't speak for all people with congenital disabilities that wasn't my point

My point was specific, that people keep talking about what people "like me" must think, but refusing to engage with me when I state what I think personally

It's easy to keep batting me away and speaking for me. Its a performative saviourism that doesn't actually help people with disabilities though.

You are aware that children literally die from being born withdrawing from drugs right?

You say my IQ must not be impaired and then speak to me as if I am stupid.

I'm glad you think my disability has not affected me that much. Personally I find being sight impaired amoungst other things to have a massive impact on my life, but hey ho

Those who are advocating for removing womens rights are opening the door for the rights of others to be removed. And that means all those disabled children you supposedly care so much about are next in line. History has already taught us that.