Passive smoking in pg - how bad is it?

[berolina]

Hi there everyone.
As my last pregnancy ended in miscarriage early on, I have this time been pretty religious about keeping myself away from any potentially nasty influences. I'm 14w 3d now and so far, despite persistent tiny amounts of spotting which I think is from a cervical erosion, everything is going well. Now a friend of mine is in my neck of the woods which doesn't happen very often so we definitely want to meet up tomorrow. She is in the next big city, and I would ask her to come out to my town to see me, but I have to go into the city anyway to do some shopping so we want to meet there in a cafe or something. How bad is it for the baby if we end up sitting near people who are smoking and can't move easily? I'll do my best to find us a smoke-free place to meet, but I don't know the city very well as we've only been living in the area since March. Although I know the pregnancy is well-established now I'm still pretty paranoid... Also we will be spending Christmas (the evening of Christmas Eve and lunch on Christmas Day, not staying overnight) at my PIL, who have a very small flat (without a garden/balcony) and my MIL is a heavy smoker - we have agreed with her that she'll go into another room, shut the door and open the window to smoke, but is that enough precautions? How about any residual particles hanging around the flat? I know I'm possibly going OTT, but I really don't want to take any chances... TIA for any advice!

[orangina]

hi berolina, wish i could help you or give advice, but i really don't know.... so will just bump this instead...

[Sozie]

As these exposures to smoke are for limited amounts of time I am sure it will be fine. I think regular exposure would be more of a problem say if your dh was a smoker.

[berolina]

Cheers!
Well, we met up and spent about an hour in a cafe where a few people were smoking some of the time, not sitting directly next to us but a couple of tables away. There weren't big clouds of smoke wafting over, but you could smell it a bit in the air. What does anyone think - would it have harmed baby, or was it really too short an exposure?

[80sMum]

I think it would've been OK. It's when you're exposed to it for several hours a day that it could be a problem.
When I was pg with ds1, I worked in an office where almost everyone smoked and nobody would let me open the windows because of the draught. It was torture. I left work at 28 weeks and was so glad to get away from it. Thank God that smoking isn't allowed in offices nowadays.
By the way, ds1 was fine though; full term and over 8lbs.

[berolina]

thanks 80sMum, Sozie, Orangina :)