Probably going to cause a debate....

[FructoseTart]

But I am curious. How many pregnant ladies are still smoking and roughly how much per day?

Addiction can be overcome by support and willpower

Stop press! We've been missing the answer to addiction all along! Lets get into rehabs and prisons and tell all those no good junkies how easy it is, clearly they just dont want to get better.

I'm sorry, hang on...

Addiction can be overcome by support and will power

Followed immediately by -

What possible reason... there's no justification for that, at all...

Yes. That was exactly the sort of supportive comment that would have really helped me when I was stuck in a cycle of stress, shame and addiction

for everyone who has shared their story here. This does need talking about honestly and openly. There are loads of pg women who smoke, who feel shit about their smoking and who feel too ashamed to access help. MN could be doing a lot more to support them.

sizethree you seem to be the only one here who wants a debate. You don't have to learn to understand it if you don't want to, you could just hide the thread if it's upsetting you and let others carry on offering support.

I've found most posters on the pregnancy threads to be incredibly supportive but sometimes people are so judgemental and blinkered when it comes to pregnancy (and in RL too)

I no longer smoke so don't feel it's my place to do so but I wonder if a thread in the dedicated quit smoking section of the site would be 'safer' as a support network? It just seems a shame that we can't talk about it here, in Pregnancy, which is how so many women first discover mumsnet.

Stop cutting up my comments to suit your own rants.
No one is answering my questions. Just criticising me.
I understand to a point that if you are addicted to smoking when you first find out you are pregnant then giving up will take will power and need support. But smoking well into pregnancy (women on here have smoked throughout the duration of pregnancies, some into the 20 weeks.)
Why when you can see your baby bump and feel it kick do you still choose to light they cigarette and inhale its smoke? Why don't you use the early weeks to acutely address it. Or even before you fall pregnant?
It seems you are all making excuses for eachother to make this ok.
And it's two sides. I completely understand why it's hard for you to find support when an outsider non smoker is greeted by such intolerance. Yes I am naive to the intricacies of addiction. But you are also naive to how you treat others.
I was trying to understand and clearly this is a very emotive topic, but don't brush my questioning aside when I'm the very type of person you are trying to convince that you need empathy and support from.

OK, to answer some questions honestly.

Why when you can see your baby bump and feel it kick do you still choose to light they cigarette and inhale its smoke? Why don't you use the early weeks to acutely address it. Or even before you fall pregnant?

Well, as I said before not everyone is actively trying TTC and an unexpected pregnancy can take a long time to feel real. That is how it was for me. I didn't feel pregnant for a long, long time. All I had was a piece of plastic that told me I was apparently pregnant and what felt like the world's worst case of food poisoning, which ironically made me want to smoke more (for comfort). Even at the 12w scan I don't think I really, consciously grasped that I was pg, in some weird way.

And then suddenly I was heavily pg and still having the odd cigarette and that felt so much worse that as other posters have said, it seemed so much harder to admit to anyone that I hadn't knocked it on the head in the first few weeks. And because it felt harder to admit, I felt guiltier, and I got stuck in a vicious circle.

Also, I think the concept people have of seeing that pink line on a stick and immediately feeling an overwhelming protection to the life inside of you is in some ways projecting a very personal interpretation of pregnancy onto everyone else's experience of pregnancy. As I said, that wasn't my experience of pregnancy. Hopefully it will be next time around, but it really wasn't my experience with DD1. There was so much else going on in my life that I swear I was waddling and having an elbow in my lungs before I really connected with the baby inside me.

Yes I am naive to the intricacies of addiction

To me, that is the crux of it. If you have been fortunate never to have been addicted to something in your life then it is very hard, as much as you may try, to understand why rational and logic and reasonableness doesn't just win out. It is hard then to understand what I've tried to explain about about guilt and shame and stress and using that addiction as a stress relief.

Yes Touch a thread in Stop Smoking would be a much safer space. I agree it's a shame this can't be discussed in Pregnancy but it would be good if there was a thread people could link to from here. I no longer smoke either and am not PG but if somebody started a thread in Stop Smoking they'd be made very welcome

I can honestly say that other than your initial post (which was emotive but carefully worded), every other comment you have made has been dripping with judgement and intolerance.
That is why no one is responding.
You clearly do not want to understand or you would have taken on board some small part of the responses everyone has given.
Your point has been addressed: Why do women carry on when they can feel their child kicking inside? Because, I'll say it once again, addiction is an illness, caused by a myriad of complex factors. This is all the answer you need. No one should feel they have to list their personal reasons for being addicted to a drug.

I'm the very type of person you are trying to convince that you need empathy and support from.
Women who smoke in pregnancy need empathy and support from trained professionals, midwives and other women who have been though addiction. It would be nice if you could use this as an opportunity to find out more about the complexities of addiction but this thread will no become poorer, nor the women on it more likely to continue smoking if you choose to hide it and stop posting.

Thanks thurlow for taking the time to reply. I appreciate it.
Yes I am fortunate enough to not be addicted to something. And I think the route of my frustration with this subject and my stampy feet is as I've mentioned before, is that I've suffered multiple losses. So I get very affected when I see women having sucessful pregnancies yet still smoking, as I have done everything possible in all three of mine to protect myself and my child.
I think this frustration is probably shared by other non smoking pregnant woman who look at you all and can't comprehand why you continue to smoke.
And if you are a smoker and had losses while smoking during pregnancy (even if that was not the cause) why that is not a big enough wake up call to quit.
I haven't been sitting here sneering and juding. It's a very difficult situation for anyone outside it to begin to understand. And you are a scarey crowd to infiltrate as understandly you are very defensive.
I'm not more holier than thou for not smoking. But as pregnant women we both face the same risks of miscarriage / complication in pregnancy, and it's very difficult to understand why you wouldn't do anything you possibly could to protect yourself and your unborn child at the earliest opportunity.
I feel for you all. But don't pounce on me for being a lone voice.

touch i got a very well written response from Thulow, but thanks for throwing your weight around in this topic a bit more. That's just what it needed.

i used to smoke about 6 a day before ds1. when i found out i was pg i smoked 2 a day - one on the way to work and on the way home. i had an extremely stressful job and those 2 cigs somehow helped me feel normal when i just wanted to curl in a ball and die. i shouldnt have, i know that, but i just could not give up my addiction to those 2 cigs at thd start and end of a shitty day, so if i couldnt stop just 2 cigs i can imagine how hard it must be for some. i never judge a pg smoker, i have no idea what they may be going through

gah. Nice. Real nice.

sizethree
I wrote posted my response before Thurlows appeared.

I totally and utterly understand why it is hard for you to understand. As I said your first post, though emotive (for those who have had losses and smoked as well as yourself) contained reasonable questions.

You find this subject hard to deal with and you wanted some answers, and now you have some. You admit you will never be able to understand because you have no experience of addiction. I truly hope it stays that way.
Honestly, you aren't a lone voice. Smokers get told from every direction that what they are doing is dreadful and wrong. Please don't feel you need to be the one to make someone stop because, you don't have the skills required to do so - that's not a direct criticism - I don't either. I came here in the hope of supporting people. I stayed on this thread and responded to you in the hope it could be salvaged as a place to support people.

I'm a non smoker now, but wasn't when got preg with dd1. Found it easy to stop because I knew how it would harm the baby directly. Never found it easy to give up otherwise. Plus morning sickness made it almost impossible to contemplate.

Morning ladies..I know this aint about smoking, but im desperate. I think I'm just as lost as some of you new bloggers. I am on a regular 28 day cycle and every month, I start 5 days before the last month. This morning I'm at 36 days late. I had the cramps and headaches and teardrop spotting, like a brownish color, but no period whatsoever. I tested negative twice with clearblue on Friday night and Saturday morning. With my last pregnancy, I had no symptoms of pregnancy and when I tested positive, went to see my doctor and was already four to six weeks pg. Last wknd, I had major naseau with upset stomach. Could I be pregnant. I have never been this late.

I don't think it's fair to have a pop at sizethree. She is posting from an understandable viewpoint with very particular experiences, and I can fully understand why she feels the way she does.

However it is - sadly - a very complex and emotive topic.

Thanks touch and thurlow for your replies. I appreciate them. I don't want it to be a 'me' and 'you' divide. And I wasn't weighing in for the sake of ruffling feathers.
I know I won't change anyone's mind/ views but I think it's a pertinent subject that deserves and needs to be talked about from all angles.
I hope that you lot do mange to quit and have healthy babies by the end of this bumpy pregnancy journey.

I have read a lot about smoking in pregnancy in the chat and stop smoking threads. However they are all a massive debate with everyone saying no it's disgusting you, should be fined, your killing your baby etc etc. so I posted in pregnancy NOT wanting a debate but to help support others and find out how they felt in my situation. Which is pregnant and smoking. So I think this is well suited to the topic its under.

I don't really think about the baby when I'm smoking to be quite honest. I don't smoke in the evenings, just during the day when I'm stressed and very busy. And yes my life is very stressful and I feel constantly in a cycle. Smoking helps me feel better and less stressed. Just my personal opinion, but I think pregnant smokers are thought of in a bad way too much. It's our choice yes, so why do other people in public feel the need to butt in and remind us that smoking is bad for us like we don't know. Invade our personal space and criticise us. They have no idea what's going on in our life.

The more pressure that is put on me the more I smoke down to it stressing me out. Make sense?

Makes perfect sense, Fructose.

I'm really surprised you have encountered those sorts of attitudes in the stop smoking section though. I've been an extremely regular poster on there since the section was started and have never seen anything like that. Chat and AIBU can be dreadful though. Smoker bashing seems to be a bit of a sport on MN

I do not smoke.

I have never smoked.

I do not like smoking in the slightest.

I have never been addicted to anything. I don't have an addictive personality.

I have had miscarriages.

I applaud anybody wanting to talk about tackling smoking in pregnancy.

sizethree, I suspect some of our life stories are similar. I don't think there is a great divide. I think there's a lack of understanding, a heck of a lot of emotion and hormones and pressures, the intricacies of different situations. I don't think any of it is helped with name calling, overt and pointless criticism and wild extrapolation.

I don't want to get preachy, or get involved in the 'should you, shouldn't you' debate, but when I smoked and wanted to give up a friend lent me a book called 'Easy Way to Give Up Smoking'.

It sounds naff but it kind of does what this thread is trying to; giving you as a smoker room to think about and consider it without feeling judged or targeted. It gave me a means of separating how I felt about smoking and how I felt about other areas of my life that I associated with smoking.

I've had the occasional cigarette since I've not taken up the habit again.

It's a good read and worked better for me than any NRT on offer (patches, gum, inhalers, nose spray, lozenges, mini-lozenges... you get the idea!) Anyways, the ISBN is 9780718194550.

That's a great suggestion Bogal. The Allen Carr book works for lots and lots of people.

My best friend smoked through her pregnancy, she got to the due date, had reduced movements on the day so went into triage, they did an emergency Caesarian straight away. The placenta had started to die and oxygen wasn't getting to her baby.

Smoking hardens the artierys and affects the umbilical cord, she said that if her baby had died that she would have wanted to go as well, she went to the gp and used the help there, tried patches and eventually tablets to give up. She is the one person I always thought would just go back to it, her dh still smokes and where she lives it's pretty acceptable.

I'm not gonna judge but honestly it's easy to ignore what it's doing to your baby cause you can't see it, but could those thoughts power cutting down to a couple a day, then every other day ?

That sounds like a very good suggestion Bogal. I will look into that. Thankyou.

Things can happen with the umbilical cord even if you aren't a smoker. I did give up many years ago with the help of champix tablets but cannot use them now due to previous mental health issues.

showy sorry fur your losses.
I'm not sure if you'd read the full thread, but I'd actually wrapped things up after some heated conversation and had great written answers from a few other posters.
Not sure how you calling me out at this stage has been constructive. Hope it made you feel like a better person though.