Should pregnant women be banned from smoking in light of new research?

[hunkermunker]

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"Nine out of 10 mothers whose babies suffered cot death smoked during pregnancy, according to a scientific study to be published this week. The study, thought to be one of the most authoritative to date on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), says women who smoke during pregnancy are four times more likely than non-smokers to see their child fall victim to cot death."

Personally, I find it very, very hard to understand why anybody smokes while knowingly pregnant. And yes, I know it's addictive. I speak as an ex-smoker, not somebody who has no idea what it's like to have a love affair with the evil weed.

but you dont choose when your baby is born, you do choose what to put into your body

Actually lissie, some people do try to choose when their baby is born, hence the ttc threads.

One would hope you never ever put anything which is at anytime deemed to be unacceptable into your body.

How would you live with the consequence?

ffs, i am talking about when pg. not when not.

and ttc doesnt always work. many people would rather have summer/winter babies but end up with the other or not at all. ttc is not under your control.

tbh i think if you went to the ttc threads and asked most of those women when they'd like to be pregnant, the answer would be 'today'.
i really do think, as i've said before, that it's pretty foolish to talk about smoking in the same terms as food or whatever. it's not the same, however much it would fit the 'live and let live' argument. you can see that from the posts of women who feel guilty because they do smoke in front of their children, or have done in the past. i very much doubt you would get the same level of guilt from eating a mcdonald's or drinking a fruitshoot.

aitch, you have said what i was trying to. thanks

The difference is that they are made to feel guilty.

Not arguing whether they themselves should feel this way, but this lovely society we live in, be it mumsnet or RL is so great at making one feel guilty and on the other hand supporting through thick and thin!

i dont understand your point. and refer to my earlier post:

By lissiethevampireslayer on Mon 15-Oct-07 13:24:58
im sorry, but why shouldn't they feel guilty? if you know what harm you are doing to your baby and continue why shouldn't you be held accountable? is "I'm addicted" a good enough reason to carry on? should we say "oh, well if you're addicted and the craving is too strong then carry on because it's not your fault". and i also still have that craving for a cigarette, and times when i would sell my soul for one. but having had several miscarriages and still ttc-ing i would do ANYTHING to reduce the risk to any unborn child i might have.

Ait but may be people should. Look at the papers - so many of us and our children will be obese a bigger world issue than global warming and yet we still gobble down and feed our children all that unhealthy food.

And my point was that there are many variables, and the fact that someone smoked during their pregnancy may have no bearing whatsover on the subsequent outcome, no one knows that.

Yes, after the sad event we can all say 'well, at least you didn't smoke so that is off your conscience'

Small consolation to the bereaved mum.

As I stated earlier, I do not advocate anyone starting or continuing to smoke, pregnant or not.

but if you did, how could you live with yourself knowing that you had willingly increased the risks?

Risks are exactly that, risks.

If you take your child out in a car, there is a risk of an accident.

If your child walks down a street, there is a risk.

If you never take your child to a swing park, they will never be injured in a a swing park

Life in itself is a risk, some risks you can totally eliminate, some you can 'manage'

If you never smoke you can say you reduced that risk, but it doesn't mean that SIDS etc. won't happen.

Would that in life we could be so certain of all things, but life is not a certainty, we just do our best.

true story, xenia. but i don't think there is a public will just yet, whereas there is aseachange in how people view smoking.
we've had the smoking ban in place for a while here, and i was in NYC when they first brought it in there, it does change the social acceptability of smoking and you know, i don't actually feel that's a bad thing.
i smoked, i'd probably still smoke if it wasn't so bowfing and expensive because i still dream of one when i have coffee and dessert but i do accept that it's a grim habit with grim repercussions for our nearest and dearest. my grandmother, for example, who died of lung cancer despite having never smoked a cigarette in her life. my grandpa was an 80 a day man, so she got her share. my uncle had lung problems as well, which the docs said was probably due to his having been exposed so much when he was a child.

okay, so if you think that smoking while pregnant is 'doing your best', nnt, then there we diverge. i don't even think that the women on here who did smoke when pregnant would say they were doing their 'best'.

If you take your child out in a car, there is a risk of an accident. You use a carseat, to protect your child

If your child walks down a street, there is a risk. you teach your child the green cross code

If you are pregnant and you are a smoker then you should at least TRY to quit. It is all about minimizing the risks

Pick the points if you wish Aitch, I said that we do our best, that wasn't referring to smoking, that was in reference to risk assessment and management of those risks in life generally.

If every 'good' person never had a tragedy befall them, where would we look for justification.

Not a nice expression to use but 's**t' happens' and I am sure the pain is equally as bad for the good person and the percieved to be bad.

Or would you not afford the bad person no sympathy?

Sorry, the grammar went a little awry

but we are talking about smoking here, nnt, that's the point of the thread. of course shit happens, but you cannot dissuade me from being shocked at the fact that they have worked backwards to find that in 9 out of 10 of the cot deaths looked at, the mothers smoked prenatally. i would also be shocked if they were ff, if they were low income, if they were single mums... but that's not what they were looking at. for all i know, all or none of the other factors were present but that's not what we're talking about.

Kittywitch "How about banning women from having kids until they can prove that they
A) have enough money
B) are emotionally mature enough
C) fill in your own.......... "

Well its what Bran and I had to do, so don't see why you lot should get off so easy! I think everyone should have to appear before a panel of 12 people after 3 months of meetings with social workers discussing how they are going to raise their child before they are allowed to get pregnant.

In fact now I come to think of it, perhaps MN should make a bid to run the panels...

That's the thing Aitch, the 9 out of ten mothers smoked, yes, no denying that, but the survey did not and can not say without question that the smoking was the cause of death.

Smoking is such an emotional thing in a debate that all other factors which may be more relevent in a particular situation, go unmentioned.

I really wish mothers would not smoke, but true facts will help us to dissuade them. Taking statistics that have failed to include all relevent information leaves an open doorway for continuing to smoke.

but isnt the "9 out of 10" just too much of a margin?

is anyone saying that smoking was the cause of death, thought? that's not how i've taken it, certainly. but it is interesting as a factoid, though, and i personally think it's a pretty stark stat to tell pregnant women and encourage them to give up. in a way that threatening a woman with a bowling ball for a stomach that 'your baby might weigh less' is not...

I think ALL smoking should be banned.

Cigarettes should be supplied on prescription only to registered addicts! Only way to stop new smokers, and to stop under-age buying, and to ensure health is monitored for smokers who should be given every help to give up.

LOL Milliways.
I can't believe it's still going on.

Is it potentially really bad for your children if you smoke whilst pregnant??
erm.............YES

So???

Don't do it.

Simple.

So, some 450 posts in, smoking's the healthy choice in pregnancy, Aitch and Custardo are to wed in a civil partnership with a service carried out by Elvis and attended by two small handbag dogs and a string of hedgehogs and I'm wondering why on earth it is that if you mention formula advertising being banned, you get people kicking off about how you liken formula to cigarettes then and that's awful and makes women feel guilty and yet here people are, likening actual formula to actual cigarettes, which is clearly nental.

The world has gone mad and I'm going to wear a Daily Mail on my head in the shape of a boat to celebrate.