colleague smoking while 8 months pregnant - aaaah!

[Lil]

Am sure I'll be trashed by the 'live and let live' brigade, but I am so-o-o angry with a colleague of mine who is merrily puffing away on her ciggies whilst very preggers. I just bumped into her outside the office in the smokers den and I was this close to having a real go at her. Wish I had, it would have calmed me down..am sitting here very pissed off and irate!!!!

Has anyone here ever let rip?

Agree with Soup dragon. I don't get this argument about being adults and it being a personal choice. We're talking about the risks to the child but not actually what that means. That child has no choice and a smoker is potentially subjecting that child to a life time of ill health.

And everyone who says they smoke, but not around the children - are you aware that you are breathing out that smoke for an hour after each cigarette? So if you don't smoke around the children are you ensuring that you don't breath near them for an hour?

I really don't understand why having battled to give up you would choose to start again.

Just read through whole thread. Very interesting. Don't smoke myself, and have always wondered how anyone can when pg, but have realised after reading all this that it's not as straightforward to stop if you want to as I had presumptuously assumed, so I'm going to try very hard not to look horrified when I see pregnant mums puffing away in the future - we all have our own personal demons, and shouldn't have to face a barrage of criticism if trying and perhaps failing to confront them.

Anais ... am I right in assuming that you have never been a smoker?
It isn't as simple as 'choosing' to start again. I am sorry but it just isn't. Just like alcoholism, smoking is an addiction. And just like alcoholics who haven't had a drink for 10 years are still alcoholics, once a smoker always a smoker.
My father gave up smoking 20 years ago (after being told by the doctor that he would be dead in 2 years if he continued). He gave up almost overnight and it was really hard for him ... he was a very very heavy smoker (60 a day). Even now he says that he would just love to be able to have one or two a day. Even now he misses what he calls the 'first drag' of the day. He has even gone so far as to say that if he was told he had 2 months to live he would start again. That is how much a smoker my dad is even though he has not touched a ciggy for 20 years.
My first cigarette that I had after not smoking for over a year ... when DS was 5 months old ... at the time felt the best thing in the world.
Once you are a smoker (I started when I was 13) it is very very hard to stop. And if you stop it is very very easy to start again ... take my word for it.
I do take your point about breathing out smoke for an hour etc ...
Addiction to any drug (nicotine, alcohol, heroine) is a terrible thing .... and unless you have been there and experienced it you will never know the battles that people face in trying to combat it.

Ghosty, no I have never been a smoker, although my sister smokes, which upsets me greatly. I guess you're right, I had an ex who was a heroin addict, so having seen what he went through I suppose I should be a little more sympathetic. But surely you have to want to smoke to start again, and when you start you know what you are getting back into. I can't get my head around that - but you're right, I have never experienced it first hand, thankfully.

I dont agree or disagree with any of you, we all are women, we all have a conscience, we all do what we feel is right at the time. Enough said!

anais I can't get my head around why I go back to smoking either. It's not aphysical addiction I know, as I can honestly not be bothered by not smoking for ages. But put me where I can smell smoke and stick a glass of alcohol in my hand and I just can't resist.
But yes - I do make sure I don't go near my baby afterwards - it's only ever when I/we go out, so dd is always fast asleep when we get home.

I smoked for 4 years but gave up when i was pregnant with DS, started again when he was about 5 months, smoked all through DD1s pregnancy (something I am not proud of) then she was admitted to hospital at 4 months old with brontilitis, that was enough for me to stop there and then, seeing her struggling to breathe and in a Oxygen tent. I started again last feb for a while after my best friends baby died. I gave up again about 2 months later. I haven't smoked since and believe that I will never smoke again, BUT once a smoker, always a smoker.

sunday times today
July 13, 2003

Health: Susan Clark: What's the alternative?

Q: This is my second attempt to stop smoking and I cannot understand why I have put on weight. I have not been replacing cigarettes with snacks and sweets. Does the body react differently with or without nicotine?

D Higgins, Co Cork

A: The reason you can eat no more but still gain weight when you stop smoking is that the very act of smoking a cigarette accelerates all the body?s systems, including the metabolic rate, which also determines how quickly you burn up calories and metabolise fat stores.

A single cigarette has been shown to increase blood pressure by 15mm and pulse rate by 15 beats per minute in adults. If a pregnant woman smokes a cigarette and you put a stethoscope over her abdomen, you will hear the baby?s heart rate increase by eight beats per minute.

I wonder if something productive could be salvaged from this thread, by me asking the smokers -- why did you start? More importantly, what could have prevented you from starting & getting hooked in the first place?

Z -- with her usual bout of insomnia.

OK Haven't posted in a while because as I said smoking is my own private turmoil but am delighted to say am now 48hrs without a cig.

Damm hard going but quite simply have to make it work this time, also have been put on Iron as I always am in Pregnancy so that little apprehension helped me along, also this thread if I'm honest.

Zebra ... in answer to your question ...
Why did I start?
a) Because I was 13 and it was a rebellious, 'cool' thing to do.
b) Because up until then I had had wonderful (?) role models in my parents ... my dad was a 60 a day smoker (pls see earlier post) ... even his doctor telling him to stop for his health had no impact on me ... as 13 year olds tend not to listen to anyone over the age of 18 (or at least the ones I knew didn't)

Really don't know what could have prevented me from starting ... maybe knowing someone die of lung cancer .... maybe having different parents/friends etc ...

By the time I was with it enough to realise it wasn't cool and that it might kill me one day I was hooked (probably when I was about 17) and on 20 a day.

I even had a teacher who would let us smoke at school during weekend play rehearsals. The same teacher who let us smoke on school field trips when we were 16/17 ... I suppose in his bid to be a 'cool' teacher. I can't think of any teacher nowadays who would do that. If I could go back in time and give him a good slap I would. But I can't .... so there you go ...

All the above are more reasons for me to never start again and for DS never to see me smoke.

Ghosty, you are not alone. 75% of smokers start before they are 18. But the cigarette companies assure us that their ads are not designed to make smoking seem atractive, just to get people to switch brands. Yeh, right! And they have to get a lot of new smokers because the old ones are dying off at a rate of 300 odd a day!

Angelmother. Good for you! Go for it girl and good luck!

I am not defending smoking in pregnancy, we all know that it is dangerous. I started smoking again after my son was stillborn, it was a time of great trauma, stress and overwhelming grief and having a smoke seemed to help. I have no right to condem my friend for her choices no matter how much i disagree with them. All you can do is try to educate people on the dangers of smoking in pregnancy. I am pregnant and i don't smoke. Another friend who also had a stillbirth last year is pregnant and does smoke, does it make her a bad person because she cannot cope with her demons without having the odd fag, i don't think so. It is a fact of life that people smoke and no matter how much you argue the rights and wrongs, short of banning pregnant women from shops that sell ciggies or arresting them when they are spotted with a fag, there isn't much any of us can do about it.
ANGELMOTHER: Well done every hour without a ciggie is a bonus, i ate lots and lots of oranges when i was giving up. Every time i felt the urge to smoke i ate a satsuma or tangerine after a while the craving died down, but now i have no great love for oranges!!!!!!!!!!!

Zebra, I started smoking in a bit of an odd way I think. I smoked quite a bit of dope when I was 17 but didn't smoke ordinary cigarettes, not at all. Everyone knew I didn't and didn't offer them to me. Then one weekend my boyfriend and I couldn't score and I smoked a normal cigarette instead ('straights' we called them, uggh, cringe). I gradually smoked a few more of other people's, then I realised I owed them so I started buying them and on down that slippery slope I went. My dad also smoked (although he didn't live with us and he always told us not to) and he was cool, charismatic and a very interesting un-stuffy adult. So I think for me it was a combination of nicotine addiction - and I think that happened without my realising it in that I wanted something when I couldn't score any dope but I didn't know what it was and I now think it was that nicotine pang - and having a smoker role model in my father. He died of lung cancer 2 years ago and only gave up 6 months before, although he spent a lot of his life on failed attempts to stop. It's still taken me another 2 years to give up and one of my sisters still smokes. He would have smoked in hospital had he been allowed/been physically capable. So just seeing someone die isn't always enough - I know it should be but we are talking about a v. powerful drug.

I think it's Oliver James who reckons that smokers are self medicating for depression but I'm not sure I agree with that. I somewhere in my brain though used to think that interesting people smoke and boring ones don't. I also completely agree with hmb about that deferral of risk thing - we just don't think it'll happen to us since the future seems so far away. Indeed, I didn't ever even want to give up until I was pregnant with ds, nearly 6 years ago and then I did it very easily with Allen Carr's book. I stupidly went back to it though after he was born and only gave up again (after a couple of 8 month/6 month stints of stopping in between) when I got pregnant again this time, so since March this year. I really am determined not to go back this time but I know I must never ever smoke another cigarette again or I'll be hooked. For me there is no such thing as one cigarette. Sorry to have gone on so long but I found it interesting to answer that question, since I've not thought about it much, the whole why did you start thing.

I do think it's a good thing that smoking has become/is becoming so socially unacceptable. Apparently calls to the NHS Smoking Quitline have gone up by 25% or something since the new warnings on the packet. I have to admit that when I was still smoking and those warnings appeared they stopped me in my tracks and I heard myself ask for 20 Silk Cut Ultra Low (yep, was a v. scaredy ultra low smoker, there's guilt for you) instead of the 40 I'd been intending to buy.
Angelmother, well done, keep it up. People used to tell me I made smoking look enjoyable and made them want to smoke but if I can do it anyone can.

I was 11 when I started smoking. The Ice Cream van where my friends stayed used to sell us single cigarettes and a few matches for 10p each. My Mum and Dad both smoked and I used steal their cigarettes and smoke them once they had gone to bed. I was a bit of a nerd and this was my way of being coooool. The scary thing is that it worked! The more 'popular' people at school started talking to me and soon we were all sharing cigarettes at the back of school bus. I was stupid and naive to think I would never get addicted, but I was only a child.

My dp didn't start until he was 21, but like WWW he smoked dope before then.

I was looking at one of the packets of ciggies with the new warning logo on. You know the logo that takes up half the side of the pack and says in big black letters that your chance of dieing a horrible death is increased by smoking...or words to that effect...then I thought of all those smoking women in Supermarkets who desperately read the smallest print on the back of food packets, to check for E-numbers and preservatives!!!!! Is it only me who thinks this is deeply ironic?

True enough, but I also think that the message they are trying to get across is not working and I personally feel that increasing the font size of the warning is futile. You could put it on billboards all around the cigarette counter and it still wouldn't hit home.

Unfortunately denial is denial no matter the font size.

And now they are not allowed to call the milder cigarettes 'Lights', as this is meant to imply they are healthy cigarettes! Very strange.

I definitely think the best way to stop children smoking is to keep the price of cigarettes high. But, then again, as long as there are dodgy corner shops and Ice Cream vans selling individual cigarettes to children, then they will always be accessable.

I am also cynical about the changes, but they have said that calls to 'Quit Line' have gone up 25% since the changes were made, so some good might come of the change

Why not restrict the sale of cigarettes, if you already smoke you have to register to buy them from an approved place. Then non-smokers will find it harder to start as they would have to go and register etc. A nightmare to administer, but I bet you it would virtually wipe out smoking in a generation!

The warnings are nowhere near the same size on duty free cigarettes.

I have a Canadian cigarette packet here which has the following on:

(Largest font)
WARNING EACH YEAR THE EQUIVALENT OF A SMALL CITY DIES FROM TOBACCO USE

Then a bar chart:

Murders - 510

Alcohol - 1,900

Car accidents - 2,900

Suicides - 3,900

Tobacco - 45,000 (this accompanied by a long red bar as opposed to the other short black ones)

So that's why I've been boring for the last 7 years WWW

That'll be it then Cam

You're lucky CAM, for some of us, it's a lifetime affliction (like Tigermoth, I've NEVER smoked!)