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?

If a foetus is given more protection than they currently have, it would absolutely open up the abortion debate. Some have already argued on this very thread that abortions happen and that should be stopped before moving on to women who use drugs and alcohol during pregnancy.

After 24 weeks could certainly be a possibility to enforce this as a foetus does have more protection then but at the same time, it will already be damaged by alcohol and/or drugs because the damage tends to happen during the first trimester where a foetus can also be legally aborted.

@Mojoj , the number of SPAG errors in the OP would not have had as many comments had @Caterpillarsleftfoot not claimed to be a teacher.

@SouthLondonMum22 fair point. First trimester is crucial

That’s it.

It’s also important to consider where it would end and at what cost? Someone earlier for example was also arguing that obese pregnant women should be included with those who drink and take drugs during pregnancy.

Of course it’s horrendous what those poor babies have to go through and of course I absolutely don’t agree with it but something like this would set a precedent because history tells us that it never, ever ends just there and that would be my greatest concern.

Yes they said that to me as well but it seemed a poor excuse. I have a carbon monoxide alarm at home.

Either way it's still my right to make an informed decision about whether to consent to the test or not and I chose not to. The midwife was totally fine with it as I explained my reasoning.

Maybe what is needed is much more extensive help for people with addiction problems with pregnant women going to the head of the queue

I can't have kids but imagine for a second I can

I have PCOS (not the reason I can't have kids) and I can go 12-16 weeks without a period

Say I realise 12-13 weeks in that this time I am in fact pregnant. I go for a check up at the doctors and they do a blood alcohol test. They find alcohol because I usually have a glass of wine once or twice a week and because I didn't know I was pregnant I was still doing this.

At this point the proposal is that I am incarcerated for the rest of the pregnancy for the sake of the baby.

So my only option as a woman with PCOS and irregular periods is to never drink during until menopause or I risk being incarcerated.

And the proposed law is pointless because in my case the all important first trimester has passed anyway, but I am still being punished

I'm pretty sure a lot of the people advocating for this have drunk in their puberty to menopause years. They just haven't been in this situation so they are happy to advocate for others to be punished.

This would also catch a lot of peri menopausal women out as well. The second trap for a woman with PCOS. Women with PCOS are sometimes more likely to get pregnant towards menopause as the hormone shift makes their hormones temporarily more "normal".

But if you know you are peri menopausal you may think no periods is in fact the menopause. A few drinks later and you are eligible to be incarcerated.

Meanwhile you lose your job, your house and your life as you are locked up for months. How on earth does this then make your babies life better, safer etc when it's born. Or does that not matter because the baby is automatically gping to be put up for adoption thanks to the people who have refused to engage about attachment disorder on the thread.

This would absolutely be a sensible option

But some people like to go straight to punitive rather than rehabilitation

Hear hear!

I completely didn't think about prescription drugs!

I was on some really strong opioids in my youngest child's pregnancy, I wouldn't not have been able to function without them pain wise. My youngest was born withdrawing from that medication which was an incredibly shit time and I felt like an awful mother but the truth of the matter is, without that medication I would have needed to terminate the pregnancy and they wouldn't be here. She has had no lasting effects from the medication either, though I guess we are just lucky.

I wonder if the OP feels so strongly about women like us? Should we be locked up just because we needed prescription medication?

Much as I agree that I find it revolting that some babies are exposed to drugs and alcohol in the womb, ultimately the woman’s bodily autonomy takes precedence.

Many years ago I had a friend in Toronto who was addicted to heroin. When she found out she was pregnant she went to a wonderful institution known as the Addiction Research Centre (I don't know if it still exists), and they very, very slowly weaned her off heroin so that the baby would be born without an addiction. If they had tried to take her off heroin more abruptly, they would have killed the baby.

@NameChangeEmbarressed it's subjective whether someone considers abortion to be harming a child. I personally do which is where my confusion came in.

@Caterpillarsleftfoot a few people have asked but you haven't responded. Logistically, how would you actually propose enforcing this? - given the unborn babies cannot be removed from the mother, presumably you mean pregnant women who don't comply should be locked up? So, is it just if they continue taking illegal drugs? What if they take medication for an illness or condition they have, but because nothing has been tested for safety when pregnant pretty much every medication just says 'don't take whilst pregnant'. And what about alcohol - any alcohol at all, ie a half a glass maybe once a week in the third trimester, or only women who are 'alcoholic'? What about if a woman drinks more than the 'recommended' amount of caffeine whilst pregnant, as that's a drug?
You keep explaining your view in theory only, which I think you feel seems perfectly reasonable and palatable, but when it comes to the practicalities it's actually horrifying - as others have pointed out, it's very Handmaid's Tale-esque.

Women who take drugs knowingly when pregnant are selfish arseholes! Anyone on here saying otherwise is quite frankly just as bad!

I lost babies and knowing some of these cretins took such awful care of theirs and I had no choice to have mine die inside me disgusts me!

Mumsnet is mad! It goes WILD if a woman is dating someone with a drug problem on here, I've literally just read one about weed. As soon as it's anything to do with a pregnant women (you know, someone who is north just harming themselves) it's suddenly not that bad, they need help not judging! Wow

#not not north - crikey it's a bit early for me

Really?

What about women who didn't know they were pregnant? Lots of women drink alcohol before they know they are pregnant. Some women don't know the whole of their pregnancy and then some would pretend they didn't know. It would be impossible to enforce. Not only that it's not as black and white as it appears.

Woman's body woman's choice is technically correct but

Drinking or doing drugs will do physical and mental harm a future person.

Abortion does not harm a future person.

There's a grey area here I think, although how you enforce it I don't know.

Some people would not know that they were pregnant or until later in the pregnancy

People smoke, drink, drugs, do dangerous activities like some sports, eat herbal remedies, eat soft cheese etc, etc

Would never be able to police this

Where would you stop?

If the father is abusive? If the family have a poor diet ? These harm children too. What about the family that can't afford a home so the child is being raised in poor conditions and not getting a proper education ?

The best solution must surely be to support people so that they don't use drink and drugs inappropriately, to build a society where people have what they need to live a good life without crutches

This is a brisk discussion first thing in the morning! I couldn't help noticing throughout the thread that posters separate drugs and alcohol. Yet we know alcohol is the most widely used and most damaging drug used in our country.
I personally think we need to acknowledge the harm alcohol does and accept this more widely. And I'm a teacher and I have taught many children who have been harmed.

I think the arguments on here are overlooking what one might mean by a lifelong disability. My children are adopted and were subject to in utero drugs / alcohol misuse. I have known many other adoptees, many of whom would also have had similar experiences. If you met many of them, you wouldn't be able to distinguish them from the general population. Mine are young adults now, and they are physically fit and functioning in society. Yes, they have had emotional issues but those would likely be caused by the traumas they have experienced in being taken into care and having had to make several moves to different carers as babies / toddlers. It's possibly their cognitive functioning is not as sharp or effective as it might have been, but it would be impossible to determine that.

Foetal alcohol syndrome CAN produce major physical and mental disability but not always. As far as I'm aware the effects of some other drugs can be difficult to determine and may be negligible.

Babies might be harmed more by stresses in the mother's life, the fact she lives in a highly polluted area or the fact she only ever eats pizza. Etc. Should they be locked up or forced to have an abortion too? While it is sensible to try to provide an unborn child with the healthiest possible environment, it's dangerous to want 'perfect' babies only. Many many people alive today probably experienced some kind of 'harm' during pregnancy, and they are living productive lives.

A lot of health advice given is to try to mitigate against unhealthy babies being born because studies have shown causal factors, but that doesn't mean any mother who ignores the advice will be harming her child in a noticeable way, or in any way at all. Yes maybe one drink at a critically sensitive time of a pregnancy COULD irreparably and significantly damage a child, but the actual chance of that is tiny. And the time where it is most likely to be damaging is early on, so only women actively planning to conceive, who are also in possession of all the facts AND in good mental health are going to avoid drinking (or other substances/ stressors) then. The babies born to all the other women are not automatically bound for depressing, unhealthy and painful existences.

It is interesting that those arguing for holding pregnant women in custody don't consider that healthcare staff would not be willing to do this.

I'm a mental health nurse, I've supported a few pregnant ladies over the years in hospital and its felt ethically right that the woman is the patient and while we consider baby (I.e. avoiding teratogenic meds) the baby's wellbeing would never override the mothers.

I personally can't imagine knowingly drinking/smoking/taking drugs during pregnancy. Imagine how desperately shit you'd have to feel to do this. If we are considering spending millions on custodial arrangements for traumatised women how about we opt to spend that on assertive support teams instead?

Interesting you have taught many children who have been harmed. I have taught hundreds of children. I've mostly no idea which have been harmed in whatever way. People don't usually fill in their drinking habits during pregnancy on a school application form and even families known to social care have a right to privacy. There are obvious cases of families with a long history of substance abuse but what about the nice quiet ones where no one has any idea. Do they tell you at parents evening when you mention the child doesn't know their tables?