To be REALLY annoyed that my sister is still smoking at 25 weeks pregnant?

[Mamatastic]

I am just home from visiting my parents and sister and even though she said she was going to give up she had a packet of 20 in her bag and was outside smoking quite the thing. I said 'I thought you had given up?' to which she replied 'It's fine!' erm....no it's not! She doesn't think she is doing the baby any harm even though her midwife said baby is getting the equivalent of 10 fags a day. I asked if she was planning to keep smoking once baby is here and she said 'that will be fine then as I'll go outside' but she then went on a rant re her DP cos he dares smoke in the bathroom inside! I have told her about SIDS etc but it's in one ear and out the other. She honestly does not see a problem with it.

I know how hard it is to quit as I smoked years ago but you would think you would certainly knock it on the head once you were pregnant would you not?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

"Must be something wrong with the maternal instinct."

• so I'm not a good mother because I didn't mange to quit at all with DS3, smoked a whole packet in 3hrs while sat at the bus station in Northampton waiting for a bus (to anywhere - I'd just had a MASSIVE row with my now Ex-H), and because I still had one a day until I was 4 months pg with DS1.......

FAQ - when I was pg with dd1, my husband walked out and left me.

I smoked.

I lit a cigarette once when he happened to be near me and he came over and said to me "oi! that's my baby in there, put that out"

I have to confess that I thought him leaving us when I was 5 months pg was going to affect the baby slightly more than a couple of cigarettes a day.

Take my advice and leeeeave the thread now, sweetie.

It will only end in tears.

shoud have been a while pg with DS2 in the bit about the bus station.

Squonk - you're probably right, actually you are right - this thread is going to upset me, being told my motherly instincts are "wrong" and that addictions just need "will power" to stop never were going to be good for me.

DPs friends wife is 4 months along and still chain smoking and drinking like a fish.

Some people just don't care

I don't think it means you're not a good mother.
I was a smoker when Pg with DD and I cut down, and started smoking lights etc, but really it was just lip service to quitting.
When pg with DS1, I quit immediately.
If you really want to quit you will, I was just of the 'stick my head in the sand and hope nothing happens to my baby' mentality with DD.

well VS - I was of the "lying awake worrying myself sick about the effects of the smoking" with DS3 vareity - there was no sticking my head in the sand I can assure you.

If you felt that strongly you would have quit.

well I did feel that strongly - I hardly slept for the first 6 months of my pg due to the combination of stress/worrying and working night shifts.

How dare you assume if I "felt that strongly" I would have quit that it would have been so
bloody simple for me??

Do you think I really enjoyed throwing up after having a cigarette? Because I sure as hell didn't.

Look, nobody put that cigarette in your mouth.
You had to actively go to the shop, buy them, open the packet, take one out, light it and smoke it.
Your choice.
There were many points at which you could've said 'No, I'm too worried about how this will harm my baby' but you didn't.
At least have the balls to own up to it.

I totally disagree that if you feel strongly enough you WILL quit. Am now an ex smoker but smoked during DD1 pregnancy and used to cry after every cigarette as I felt overwhelmed both by guilt and my own addiction.

People addicted to illegal drugs are given more empathy about the strength of their habit than smokers.

Smoking is a revolting disease not a character weakness.

(that should be admitted I smoked during pg)

addiction is not a choice

fine, so some found it easier to give up than other - some people find it is the hardest thing in the world to get treatment for their addcitive disease and manage to quit smoking

try having some empathy those on their oh-so-high-horses

FAQ - step away from the thread.

The reason I say that is because you are part of a small number of smokers who are emotionally tied up with the addiction as well as physically. I am too. NO amount of explaining will ever make sense to any one on here unless they are like you and I too. It's worth discussing on a seperate thread though - maybe at a later date.

FAQ: I agree with doodle.

Nothing can be gained from you being on this thread, you will just get yourself more and more worked up, and that's going to be good for nobody (it may make you want to light a fag, fgs! )

Step away from the thread. Hit that "hide" button and post on as many other threads as you can till it drops out of "threads I'm on"

I'll help you.

Can everyone just give FAQ a break for a minute or two, please?

I've hidden it - getting it off my "threads I'm on" is going to take some work though.......I'm on 51 at the moment....

Addiction might not be a choice to an addict, but who gave them the first cigarette/ drink/ whatever? I choose not to be addicted to anything by not playing with it. Cigarettes taste disgusting, it takes a few times to learn to tolerate them, yet people keep going back till they can and become addicted.

it was only when I became pg that I realised how helplessly addicted I was to cigarettes. It was awful, the guilt, the desperation of finishing a 12 hour shift and that craving for a cig and the dreadful fear that I was hurting my baby. The embarassement of smoking, trying to hide.
managed to do the last 5 months on 4 pieces a day of nicotine gum, but the days I didn't have it I was sobbing and wouldn't get out of bed.
Dh gave up to help me. It did help because I used to empty all the cupboards looking for where he'd hidden his cigs when I got in from work. We were both a lot fatter when ds was born
Your SIL might be really struggling, she might feel like shit. Try not to judge her.

those of you who think it's so simple... try and compare the emotions involved to a person with OCD.

you can't tell an obbsessive compulsive 'if it bothers you just stop cleaning' or 'just stop colour coding your wardrobes' etc.... it's a compulsion.

smoking is like that for some people, it's not the nicotene.... in fact i can quite happily smoke a fag and not inhale at all and it gives me the same satisfacion, becuase it's the act of smoking that satifies the compulsion. the feel of it in you hand, the sound as it lights up, the smell and the texture, the 5 mins of just being able to stand still and smoke.

the smoke itself is only secondary, most smokers have to teach themselves to tolerate it in the first place, it's the little ritual involved in smoking that satisfies the urge, and that's alot harder to replace than a physical addiction to nicotene.

good post, PT

YANBU but some people just think they know best.

There are quitting props sold in pharmacies that light up (go red) and even give out smoke (water vapor) for the satisfaction of those urges.

An old work colleague sadly suffered multiple miscarriages. During this time she continued to smoke.

When she became pregnant for the last time (which again ended with a miscarriage) her midwife told her to carry on smoking as it would be more stress for her body to give up than the effects of the cigarettes!

Hers is such a sad story as she wanted a child so much but decided to stop trying as she could not cope with the stress.

Despite this though advice she was given seems very odd to say the least and I can never really understand why she did not give up as I understand smoking does increase the chance of miscarriage??

What I don't understand is that once this baby is born, most probably, the mother will run into a burning building, cut off her own arm, give her own life etc all for her child. How does it make sense then that she can't quit smoking when pregnant because it is 'hard'?

that is disgraceful. you should definitly say something because the poor baby is being affected/