Pregnant women smoking

[Nat291]

I hate hate hate swing pregnant women smoke, I literally feel like screaming you selfish twat to them!!!!

I smoked a lot for 10 years and when we started trying for a baby stopped straight away, I fell pregnant straight away and have touched a cig since, currently 37 weeks, I don't even like to be near people that smoke.

Do these silly women not realise it could damage there unborn child!! Yes, in the old days everyone smoked while pregnant but now there is proof it harms a baby why would you even bother.

I saw a women in labour outside the hospital last week smoking a ciggy, takes all my strength not to say something.

Rant over 😂😂

What about the Ines drinking or eating blue cheese?

meltingmarshmallows - There are quite literally always heavily pregnant women smoking outside the unit and I think it’s appalling. But I wouldn’t say anything.

But you are saying something, aren't you? You're saying it here, safely and anonymously. You've said it's appalling and that those women are selfish. You've taken the time to consider whether their lives are shit enough to justify them being unable to quit based on nothing but a bit of exchanged small talk on your way into the hospital.

If you said these things to someone outside the maternity unit you'd affect one woman. By saying it here you will have affected many more women. You will have made it harder for them to seek support to quit. Certainly you have done your bit to ensure MN continues to fail as a support forum for 10% of all pregnant women.

In terms of what we should be doing instead of judging and shaming, This is C&P from a post I did a while back:

It's not a case of 'getting the message across'. Everybody knows the message inside out and back to front. What is needed is proper advice on how to quit and good quality, non-judgmental support to maximise the chances of a successful quit. Even with those in place, success rates will be low because successful quit rates are always low.

CO testing of all pregnant women is making a big difference. When smokers are identified they are given brief advice and referred on an opt out basis to stop smoking services. It has almost doubled the number of pregnant women who successfully quit where it has been rolled out. I know a lot of people don't like the scheme because they think it implies they are lying about not smoking. This is daft because the MW know the figures, they know that 9/10 of women they test will be non-smokers. This approach works partly because by testing everybody it removes the stigma. If pregnant smokers weren't judged so very harshly it may not be necessary as they would find it easier to ask for help in the first place. You can of course opt out of the test and that is fine. What is deeply unhelpful is when people get outraged because how very dare the MW suggest they might be a filthy smoker and what's more lie about it? That just increases the stigma and shame for pg smokers all over again.

Another scheme showing very promising results is offering financial incentives. This is now being rolled out in a few areas. This pisses people off even more than the CO test thing, but we're talking about what works here, not what makes non-smokers feel better. It makes sense if you remember that smokers, including those who are pregnant, are overwhelmingly likely to be on a low income. The stress and financial pressure of preparing for a new baby in often less than ideal circumstances can make it incredibly difficult for a smoker to even contemplate quitting. A few vouchers just at the right time can ease that somewhat and give the woman a bit of headspace. Even if you think that's bollocks and these are just selfish horrible women who care more about a few vouchers than the health of their babies, so what? It works, babies are born healthier and it's cost effective.

There are things we could be doing much better.

ASH recently published a report that showed there was a big gap in training for MW and other HCP around supporting pregnant women to quit. While staff are clear on the risks of smoking, they lack the skills to communicate sensitively with pregnant women and actually help them to quit. The study also found knowledge gaps around the use of NRT and ecigs in pregnancy.

We need to be making more of harm reduction for those women who find it the hardest to quit. The Smoking In Pregnancy Challenge Group has recently published sensible guidance on the use of ecigs in pregnancy.

We need to be investing much more in perinatal mental health services. People with MH issues are not only far more likely to smoke, but smoke more heavily, be more addicted and find it harder to quit. This is not a cheap option but it would make a big difference not only to smoking rates but to the mental wellbeing of all pregnant women.

And of course there are things everybody could do to help right here on MN - cut the judgment and offer support instead. I was reading a thread yesterday where a pregnant woman had a very high BMI and was feeling scared and judged and worried she would be seen as a bad person. Nobody went on that thread and called her names, bludgeoned her with the health risks, told her she should be ashamed. Instead, she got lots of supportive posts, encouragement and reassurance that she would not be judged by HCP. That's the way it should be, and it's the way it should be on smoking threads too.
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If anybody feels like supporting a change of culture on MN so we can be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, there's a thread on site stuff here, requesting a webchat from someone properly sensible on this topic. MNHQ got back to me a while ago to say it's in the works but a few bumps would help keep it on the agenda.

Also I think there is too much emphasis on the 9 months of pregnancy as the essential time to quit. In fact there is never a bad time to quit for maternal health, child health or anybody else's health. Quitting during pregnancy and then starting again straight afterwards is not great.

Children do better if they are not around smoking in childhood.

Children are less likely to start smoking themselves in their teens if their parents don't smoke.

The overwhelming majority of the health burden of smoking is borne by the smoker themselves. Even pregnant smokers. Long-term smokers have a 50% chance of dying prematurely, losing on average a decade of life. I realise these are middle-aged-to-old people and are not as cute as babies and I realise this is the demographic we have all been encouraged to see as selfish, stupid, smelly and subhuman but I believe smokers are people and their health matters.

We should be encouraging and supporting women to quit at least as much for their own health as for the health of their babies, in line with the actual risks. Women's health matters. We won't make inroads into this problem while we continue to act as if women's health doesn't matter at all as long as they can gestate a healthy foetus to the point of birth.

I wonder what would be made of the fact my parents, their parents and the previous parents never smoked but me and my 6 siblings all smoke. I've also heard of families that the parents smoke and not one of their children smoke. So far all 16 of my nieces and nephews don't smoke.. most of them are late teens.. I smoked when I was pregnant with my daughter not heavily but worse still i was taking class a A drugs before I knew I was pregnant. She's 9 now and so far she's perfectly healthy and intelligent. I'm not saying it's ok to smoke or take drugs while pregnant.. I didn't smoke, drink alcohol or take any drugs when I was pregnant with my son and he was underweight (5lbs) at 42 weeks.

@PencilsInSpace There’s a World of difference between voicing my opinion about a topic generally online and going up to a woman and telling her what I think of her behaviour. I appreciate I don’t have the right -or inclination- to do the latter but I’m sorry, I have a different opinion to you clearly about those who choose to smoke in pregnancy.

I hardly think this was ever going to be an ideal resource for anyone wanting to quit and get impartial support, when by its nature it encourages anonymous discussion. There are other places for that, which I imagine are mentioned repeatedly by the HCP they come into contact with during their pregnancies.

You’re also making a massive assumption that of that 10%, all are interested in quitting.

My mother smoked when she was pregnant with me and my siblings. She smoked right through watching her own smoker mother die of lung cancer. She went on smoking until she had a heart attack at 60 from coronary heart disease caused by smoking. Then she stopped. I'm so proud of her.

We were all absolutely fine by the way. None of us have or would ever smoke. Obviously we're lucky but it's not a given that smokers will ruin their children's lives and health.

I hate smoking but I would never judge a pregnant woman smoking because of course she will be fully aware that what she's doing is wrong and maybe she is smoking having given up things that are a lot worse, or maybe she has other things going on in her life and doesn't have the massive strength needed to give up. For some people it's not as easy as just stopping.

Maybe they need help and sympathy, not judgment.

meltingmarshmallows - those who choose to smoke in pregnancy

It's an addiction. Why not go over to the alcohol support threads and ask posters why they 'choose' to continue drinking? Or go on the weight loss threads and ask posters why they 'decide' to eat too much?

Choice comes into it, people are not powerless. However none of us make any choices in a vacuum and when it comes to addiction, it's just not useful language to frame the issue, especially if that is your only focus and you fail to take account of the many things that influence or constrain that 'choice'.

You’re also making a massive assumption that of that 10%, all are interested in quitting.

No I'm not. There has been research in this area. ASH say:

More women quit smoking when they are pregnant than at any other time during their lives. One study found that pregnant smokers were twice as likely to attempt to quit smoking as nonpregnant women but surveys suggest that less than half of pregnant women smokers actually stop smoking during pregnancy

This systematic review examines the main reasons women fail or succeed in quitting during pregnancy or relapse to smoking after the birth. Factors such as social disadvantage, poor mental health, living with a smoking partner, wider support network, attitudes of HCP as well as a misunderstanding of the health risks all have a role to play in how likely a woman is to attempt to quit and how likely she is both to succeed in quitting and to sustain the success after birth.

Sure, somewhere in that 10% there might be a few women who simply don't give a shit. Let us first tackle the issues faced by the majority of pregnant smokers who do want to quit - social disadvantage, poor mental health, unsupportive partners ... Let us also tackle the systemic failures in midwife & obstetrician training which prevents them from offering effective support to quit (because what you 'imagine' is wide of the mark here).

I hardly think this was ever going to be an ideal resource for anyone wanting to quit and get impartial support, when by its nature it encourages anonymous discussion. There are other places for that

You have a strange notion of what MN is for and thankfully one that MNHQ do not share, which is why we do have a stop smoking topic among many many other support topics. Let's shut down the pregnancy topic - women should be getting support from their midwives. How many of these topics do you think should go? After all, there are other places for pretty much all support needs a MNer could possibly have.

Even with the best professional support available, the odds are not great: Overall, one in thirteen people who set a quit date with the National Health Service (NHS) Stop-Smoking Service maintain abstinence for a year. We need to be doing what we can to increase people's success rates by supporting and encouraging them. An anonymous support forum absolutely has a role to play in that, especially considering the well-documented problems caused by stigma in this area.

Only a stupid woman would willingly starve their unborn child of oxygen. Idiots

You know this thread is from November 2017 right?