Smoking all through pregnancy - was it ever acceptable?

[ClayDell]

I was born in 1972

My mum fully admitted that she smoked throughout her pregnancy with me.

i looked at my medical records and I was in a special baby unit for the first month of my life with jaundice

Was smoking throughout pregnancy considered acceptable in 1972?

Guilt or inform.

I didn't feel guilted during any of my pregnancies

Luckily in this country at the moment, women have full autonomy over their own bodies, and are free to make good or bad choices. Obviously it is not good to smoke during pregnancy, but nicotine is an addictive product which is allowed on sale, in vairous forms, unfortunately.
I did not smoke during my pregnancy, to be clear, but don't judge other women who do/did.

Acceptable?
Well, most of them smoked!
I was probably a five year old then.
My mother didn't.
The kids born were small and lightweight, if I can say it like that.

Same, my DM smoked throughout her pregnancy (allegedly everyone did back then), I was premature and jaundiced.

My mother smoked - though not heavily, fags being expensive - all through 4 pregnancies, and we were all perfectly healthy babies.

My folks both smoked (again not very heavily) when we were growing up, and none of us ever had any respiratory problems. I dare say we were lucky, though.

A book I had in the 70s on pregnancy and labour (titled Everywoman IIRC) stated that up to 10 cigs a day could be smoked in pregnancy without detriment to the baby.

My mil brags about the fact that she cut down to ten cigarettes a day while pregnant and only drank on a Friday night!

I remember going to antenatal appointments at the hospital in 1980 when I was expecting my daughter, and no one was smoking apart from one very young girl, who smoked outside before going in, and everyone was giving her disapproving looks.

My Mum smoked heavily through all her pregnancies in the early 1970s. My youngest sibling was being monitored as small for dates and my Mum declared she only ever had small babies. To quote a tv show, "Thanks for the prenatal cigarettes Ma."

I was 5lb 10oz. My siblings were also around this weight. My Mum was average height for the time, 5'2" born in 1947. It was completely normal to smoke during pregnancy.

I was born in 1966 and my mother (who was a wonderful mother) smoked throughout her pregnancy with me and then breastfed me literally with a cigarette in hand and smoked around me throughout my childhood. Fortunately I seem to have had no ill effects at all (very robust respiratory system). She gave up smoking when I was pregnant with my first child and often commented how horrified she was that she had smoked when pregnant and around me. It was just perfectly normal back then though.

My mum was a smoker, but gave up smoking while pregnant with my older siblings in the late 1960s, and resumed after the birth. So the risks were known then.

Dd was born may 97 and was rushed into hospital in December of the same year

Right next to the kids ward was a smoking room

I've never seen anything so grim-it stank everytime someone opened the door-it had brown liquid running down the walls and you couldn't see out of the windows

Lots of pregnant and post natal ladies in there,chatting to the nurses and old men

When her brother was rushed into hospital in 2023 it had gone and I was told I was imagining it

I bloody didn't-my ex used it often

I knew a woman who smoked throughout her second pregnancy in the hope that the baby would be smaller. Her first had been quite a large baby and she wanted an easier labour. There were lots of public information films giving the risks of smoking in pregnancy, but that, clearly was all she took from them.

I’m sure in years to come, people will judge our parenting as evil, selfish and reckless because we fed our children McDonalds/gave them screens or whatever. It’s easy to judge through a different lens. My DM smoked through her pregnancies (and my brothers were 10lbers, so the low birthweight thing is obviously a risk rather than a definite). I don’t judge her, it was a different world back then, but thank God we know better now.

I am a 1972 baby too. My mum did not smoke during her pregnancy with me and said that although it was advised not to, it was just advice in the same way as they were also advised to eat liver, drink a pint of Guinness every so often and drink lots of orange juice. So in a sort of "it's probably best if you don't" way rather than a "you absolutely must not" way.

I had my first two children in the 2000s in England, was asked each time whether I smoked (which I didn't and never have), the midwives took my word for it. When I had my third child in 2008 in Glasgow I was asked the same question but also asked to blow into some sort of machine to prove that I was a non-smoker, I asked the midwife about it and she said that women routinely lied about their smoking status because they knew it was a no-no, and that by testing people they could provide support.

Yes I think it was only later when people realised the risk. I think my mum smoked through all her pregnancies in the 1960s and at home when we were babies.
She was a loving and caring mother so I'm not blaming her but I live in fear now that I may have been affected by passive smoking. But there is nothing that can be done about it now.

Maybe my DM had a forward-thinking midwife because she gave up smoking when pregnant with me and my DS in the mid-70s. It had been quite a long road for her so I guess she was determined to make everything stick - she even choked down the weekly half-pint of Guinness she was told to consume 'for iron'.

MIL smoked on the maternity ward and was advised to drink Guinness for the iron. Husband turned out okay 😀

No idea tbh. But my medical hat can't seem to correlate smoking in pregnancy and jaundice at all

I remember in the 90s working on the chemist counter in Boots. I remember a pregnant woman coming in and asking the pharmacist if nicotine patches were safe for pregnant women 😔 as she was trying to quit.

I guess it never occurred to her that it would be immeasurable less harmful than smoking. The pharmacist was a bit old school and didn't hold back in telling her that.

I have never smoked, one of my sons was born at 30 weeks. He was in a special care unit for 6 weeks. I remember walking into the unit in the first few days, just as the Dr was doing his rounds, and I over heard him say 'he will be fine, strong healthy, non smoking mother!' That was over 40 years ago, and I still feel proud, at being a strong healthy nonsmoker, although I am not as robust at 74 😆

Yes, it was completely normal for the time. There was even an ash tray on the bedside table in the hospital so that women could puff away in the beds. They wasn’t limited to maternity, it was like that in many wards. It wasn’t until later that smoking rooms were designated instead on the wards. Doctors used to puff away on their rounds.

Not sure what you are surprised about. When I went to school, pretty much all teachers smoked while teaching as well, had an ashtray on their desks. The risks just were not known and it was accepted as a society. In other historical news, people were beheaded as punishment etc.

1971 baby. Mum smoked about 20 B&H a day. 🤢. As she did with my brother 1973. She had a couple of miscarriages too. My cousin had her first child about 1989 and I can remember her in the early 90s with a child in each knee, heavily pregnant and with a fag in her mouth. It was definitely not ok… I gave her a hard time about it. She doesn’t smoke now (and my mum died of cancer in her 50s).

My mum did. She was quite unrepentant though smoking killed her quite early on. It is one of those things that I struggle to understand. By the time I was born there was really clear evidence that smoking harmed babies, but people still did it.

Advice changes, we can’t go back and retrospectively apply what we know now. My mum was offered Thalidomide when pregnant with me, luckily for me she said no, but she wouldn’t have been to “ blame” if she had taken it. My oldest was born in 88 he had jaundice we were in hospital for 11 days, I have never smoked.

My mum had me in the 80's and she said she smoked on the maternity ward