Smoked during pregnancy and now I’m terrified of SIDS.

[Jlp1234]

It’s not something which I’m proud of and beat myself up every single second of every single day worrying about SIDS and the potential health implications which I may of caused through my own selfish actions during my pregnancy.
I am due to have my baby at the end of this week but have smoked pretty heavily throughout the duration of my pregnancy due to stresses of home life, a house move and renovations. There is no excuse I know before I’m hounded by tons of judgemental mothers who tell me how selfish I am - but it’s to late for me to change this now unfortunately. I am making myself extremely ill constantly obsessing about SIDS etc and wondered if anyone else has been in this position before and could offer some reassurance or advice :(

Ok, what's done is done. I won't give you a bashing. One huge thing you can do to help this is to breastfeed exclusively. From a quick Google, babies who were exposed to smoke inutero have a doubled risk or SIDS, but babies who are exclusively breastfed for at least a year have a 64% reduced risk. It will be hard, but it is something you can actively do to counter your wrongdoing. You will probably need to do some research and find local support groups to make it work. I'd also suggest investing in something line a Snuza, Angel care mat, Owlette sock.. any of the alarmed breathing devices for baby. It will help you get some sleep. I would say all mother's struggle to sleep the first week or so because they are so paranoid about their newborns breathing so it will help you from running yourself into exhaustion.

OP well done for stopping now. It’s very hard to do, and it’s great that you have already done two days. You have done the hard part already.

It’s really important for your baby that you stay stopped for good now. Have you got support with this?

One thing that can really help with the cravings and motivation to stay stopped is hypnotherapy. Have you seen anyone for this?

The main / real risks around SIDs are to do with mums who smoke during pregnancy, and babies who are born weighing less than 5.5 pounds (which a smoking mum’s baby is likely to be). You need to tell your mw so they can give you proper advice on how to prevent SIDs. The risk of Co-sleeping / sleeping in the same room as you might actually increase the baby’s chance of SIDs. So you need to check

One of the things I liked most about my midwives OP (and there was a lot I DIDN'T like too tbh) was that they were really not judgemental about this type of thing. They have seen all sorts of mums and all sorts of babies and they will not strive to make you feel bad. I am overweight and had GD wen I was pregnant - presumably my fault - but the HCPs were very much 'what shall we do now' not 'ooh naughty girl.'

Stop smoking now - as an ex smoker I know how difficult this is but OMG the sense of freedom when I had stopped!

I am not an expert on SIDS but your midwife can advise you - what I would suggest is making plans around how to live with the anxiety of having a newborn whether you have smoked or not. You may need some help with that.

I am overweight and had GD wen I was pregnant - presumably my fault - but the HCPs were very much 'what shall we do now' not 'ooh naughty girl.'
And rightly so, because many people are a bit overweight and lots of people of many sizes get gestational diabetes. It would be absolutely wrong of them to be unpleasant to you, but as you say, their response was to support you and give you information to make good choices moving forward.

Smoking in pregnancy is making a deliberate decision to ignore all medical advice. It's more like "Dr says not to have sex because of cervical issues... But I really like sex and it would be too stressful for me not to, so I'll do it anyway" or "Dr has said that I've got gestational diabetes and need to make some dietary changes and take my blood sugar... But I don't really like the idea of taking my blood sugar daily and I like cake so I'll keep snacking on cake and not bother testing my sugar levels because what's easier for me is more important than anything else"

Even on this thread we've got people minimising the effects of smoking on babies and pregnancy and suggesting charities play down their message in case it upsets people who've chosen to smoke in pregancy.

There's no need for anyone on here or offline to be unpleasant to the OP because what is done is done, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to challenge the whole "they're fine despite me smoking... My friends child only has asthma..." approach. Sometimes being supportive means being honest instead of clutching at straws trying to pretend the evidence isn't that good.

I think most of the advice on this thread has actually been 'tell your midwife'. Which is right.

I agree that being supportive can sometimes mean being honest - like saying the OP should stop smoking now. I don't think 'honesty' like ;you shouldn't have done that' is helpful because a) the OP knows and b) what is she supposed to do about it now?

I mean, sure, we can all pretend to be Head Girl and use social control in case another mum should step out of line and misbehave or we could be practical and realistic about human nature. None of us know the set of circumstances that led the OP to smoke in the first place (apart from the ones systematic on our society that allow it to happen) and only people who have actually smoked know how hard it is to give up - emotionally and physically.

simkin
"Tell your midwife" and "here are things people have done to help them stop / make the house less smoke filled when baby is here" are all useful pieces of advice.

Posters minimising aren't being helpful even though it probably gives the warm fuzzy feeling to them to say "don't worry... My friends child only has asthma and autby Maggie's cousin had 7 kids and smoked". It's not unreasonable for posters to challenge those ideas.

... and suggesting charities play down their message in case it upsets people who've chosen to smoke in pregancy.

No. Changing that headline is not playing down the message and the concern is not that it will 'upset people'.

You clearly have no clue about addiction if you think pregnant women who smoke are 'making a deliberate decision to ignore all medical advice'.

For many many women stopping smoking is fucking hard and doesn't magically get easier just because they are pregnant. Throw in mental health issues and it can be extremely hard. Every woman who smokes during pregnancy knows it's a big deal. There's no avoiding those messages. It doesn't work to just tell women off or to just keep reiterating the risks they already know in the harshest way possible.

The trick is to get women to actually believe thay can quit and unless you can do that you'll get nowhere. They'll just click away if confronted by yet another list of risks while feeling powerless to do anything about it. That's why I think the headline needs switching round - so it starts with the suggestion that 'here is something you can do'.

That page contains loads of useful information and the wording of sub-headings down the page are far more positive: 'how to keep your baby smoke-free', 'Where to get help with quitting smoking', 'How can I give up smoking?' etc. The main headline is a bum note and probably puts off a lot of the women who need to read further.

OP I'm so sorry about what has happened to your support thread. This is par for the course on MN unfortunately. A site with the stated aim of making parents' lives easier persistently fails to support almost 11% of pregnant women to make the biggest, most positive health change they can for their babies and themselves.

Make sure that you count the kicks and are especially aware of your babies movements coming up to your due date. Smoking can restrict the arteries in the umbilical cord, so can cause premature ageing in the cord and placenta. My friend has an emergency c section due to lack of movement from baby, they got the baby out in time but the placenta didn’t look good, she’d smoked during pregnancy.

My mum smoked when she was pregnant with me and my siblings in the 80s. We all had low birth weights but no other health issues (so far...). You need to stop now and never smoke again. But the past is done and you need to make sure you stick strictly to all the safe sleeping guidelines, preferably bf and just try to move on.

I think it's pattern of movements that they ask you to be aware of now rather than counting the kicks per se. But you're right that she needs to be vigilant.

OP the stress of over thinking what's already happened is probably worse than your 8 to 10 a day. Stop stressing, treat yourself to a massage out of he money you've saved.

8 to 10 isn't heavy smoking. Yes it's not great but it's not the worst. My baby photos are with me in one of my mums arms and a fag in the other. I'm still alive!

OP the stress of over thinking what's already happened is probably worse than your 8 to 10 a day.

Quitting smoking doesn’t put extra stress on your baby. It’s one of the best things that you can do for your health and your baby’s health during pregnancy—and after the baby is born. By quitting smoking now, you will be protecting your infant from the dangers of secondhand smoke and reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.

Cigarettes are literally poisonous; stress is not. It always astonishes me when people say smoking during pregnancy must be safe because it was common in the 70s (and, of course, women never had miscarriages in those days), yet also say that stress kills babies. When do they think stress was invented - last March?

The OP has stopped smoking for 2 days. Stressing about that is not going to be great for her.

Babies can sense stress, when a mothers cortisol levels are up. Trauma a mother experiences can be passed to a new born baby. Raised cortisol levels are damaging and babies do not need to feel their mothers stress.

Stop being a dick to the op. She knows she shouldn't be smoking, she's posted here for support. You're not supporting her you're being a dick and most likely making her want to have a fag and forget about it all.

Smoking is a hard addiction to give up. A lot of heroin addicts who have given up heroin still can't give up smoking fags.

OP the Alan Carr book is good. Better than nicotine replacement imo especially as you've already gone two days.

Cigarettes are literally poisonous; stress is not.

Utter bollocks. Suggest you do a quick Google of cortisol in pregnancy before you post holier than though shite like this.

@ Simkin - high cortisol in the studies you’re possibly quoting are actually of the level normally found in Pregnant women who live in war zones and there was no definite link found in humans with low maternal outcomes. That’s not comparable at all with smoking. Research in real humans has found that a parent just smoking 1- 10 cigarettes per day will increase the risk of sids by up to 4 times. With this doubling for every ten cigarettes the parent smoke. The risk of SIDS is also higher when it’s mothers (rather than fathers) who smoke. So depending on how many cigarettes OP has smoked the risk of the baby dying of SIDs may be up to 1 in 60 which is huge.

There are all sorts of studies showing all sorts of negative outcomes for hugh cortisol levels in pregnancy. I am not suggesting smoking is better - I don't have the time or inclination to do a comparative study - just that it is not true to say stress (hormones) are not harmful in the glib and somewhat patronising fashion above.

Ideally no one would smoke or be stressed ever, never mind in pregnancy, would they? However I don't think this thread can be helping the OP in either department right now. I have never been a believer in the 'lecture someone until they give in' school of lifestyle advice. Just breeds self hatred.

No judgement here. None of us is a perfect mother. I’d suggest:

1. stop smoking now
2. look into how to reduce SIDS risk and from now on do everything you can to reduce it
3. get advice and support from midwife
4. be thankful that your baby is healthy so far, forgive yourself for what’s done, and resolve to love your baby in the way that puts their welfare first in future. You’ve still got time to be a brilliant mother

GrumpyHoon your abuse of statistics is disgraceful and shocking.

Nobody's risk of SIDS is 1 in 60.

I don't know what you are trying to do here but whatever it is you should stop it.

I don't know much about the effects of cortisol in pregnancy.

I do know that the more stressed a smoker feels the harder they will find it to quit and the more likely they will be to relapse. When a smoker feels stressed they reach for a fag. It's not rocket surgery.

If you breastfeed that'll reduce the risk somewhat. Oh, and get yourself one of the movement mat monitors that sounds an alarm if they stop breathing.

It's not rocket surgery