WHO have started making recommendations for 'women of reproductive age'

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

I don't expect many on this board to care about ecigs and this thread isn't about them but about the wording they have chosen to use in their report, due to be debated in October:

The evidence is sufficient to caution children and adolescents, pregnant women, and women of reproductive age about ENDS use because of the potential for fetal and adolescent nicotine exposure to have long-term consequences for brain development.

I'm used to seeing this pre-pregnant shit from right-wing US comentators but am shocked that the WHO are now making recommendations specifically for 'women of reproductive age'. The rot is setting in and it's pissing me right off. Anybody else?

Sometimes it really is like banging your head against a brick wall and comments about rape are unnecessary. The poster in question is not having sex with a man nor intends to as she is a lesbian, therefore the need for contraception is invalid.
Common sense appears to be not so common.

Well just to be on the safe side, any woman of what used to be called childbearing age must immediately stop smoking, drinking, scuba diving, horseriding, eating soft cheese etc etc in case she harms the foetus she is probably not carrying.
What about the the other stuff that women of this age do, like driving, to their jobs mopping out the bogs in an office block where they could be exposed to chemicals/microbes? Oh that's OK cos the economy needs women to be doing shitty jobs so crack on with the grunt work girls. Just don't do anything fun because if you turned out to be pregnant and the baby had something wrong with it JUST THINK OF THE HORRENDOUS GUILT you would quite rightly feel as it would be ALL YOUR FAULT.

No women of child bearing age allowed in hospitals. I mean we are just so silly we might just wander into the XRay department.

Actually that You might get raped comment has really annoyed me. Every woman knows that there is a risk she might be raped or sexually assaulted, for some the risk higher than others. We know this and its very patronising to have someone pointing it out.

In the US, there have already been rumblings about women being in a continual state of pre-pregnancy, and should therefore avoid doing some activities which, when not pregnant are pretty normal

Wait.. what? Who is rumbling those rumblings? (genuine question)

They have always been around but garnered more support during the Bush Administration.

Pre-pregnancy in the US

A poster earlier wanted to challenge the discussion paper (before the October FCTC meeting?). And it might also be possible to influence what the UK delegation might do at the meeting.

Is anyone aware of any drafts or bullets points that should be used in making such a challenge?

What changes to 13A are sought? Is 39A OK?

And is there anything else that need attention in terms of either/both gender or physical sex and how the global anti-smoking research and information campaigns are being conducted? (If so, what needs changing and who is responsible for those areas? Can it all be done at FCTC? Or are there others?)

Thanks for the link poofus

There's a world of difference between information (which is what the WHO advice appears to be) and unwanted interventions (or in the extreme any thought of banning women from activities which would be outrageous). A woman wanting teratogenic acne treatment should be given the advice in no uncertain terms, and then allowed to make her own decision. Same thing with the vaping - provide the advice and then butt out.

One crucial difference in the case of vaping versus many of the other things which potentially affect pregnancies is that nicotine is highly addictive. So unlike a prediliction for soft cheese, a habit begun at a point where a woman is actively avoiding pregnancy could be hard to kick when later she wants to ttc.

So teenaged girls should be avoiding the activities that their male counterparts indulge in, on the basis that they might become addicted and then if they get pregnant it might be difficult to give up which in turn might have a negative impact on the foetus. All of this to happen at some unspecified point in the future or indeed not at all.

Right-o.

Despite the fact that many of the same substances have a negative effect on sperm quality with potential issues for any progeny conceived. (Studies underway and at earlier stages because until very recently indeed it was assumed that anything wrong with a foetus must be the fault of the women housing it).

Wouldn't it be better to advise teenagers and young adults of both sexes to be cautious with addictive substances? Like we, in fact, do already? Is it important to add to girls specifically that they must be extra cautious with such things, on the basis that they are the ones with wombs?

This all sounds very familiar doesn't it? The approach that girls must behave differently to boys, more sensibly, more responsibly, etc. Funny that.

I'm a bit torn on this.

A few years ago I went to the doctor with a condition and was told there were two treatments, however, one would not be possible to have if I was pregnant or breast feeding so if I thought I might get pregnant, I should pick the other one.

The advice was useful because I did intend to get pregnant again. I chose the other treatment. It would have been counter productive if the doctor couldn't have told me this.

What if you had not been planning on becoming pregnant, whatsoever, or were actually unable to become pregnant yet were between the ages of 10 and 50, and chose the other option, and the doctor said, well actually I'm not going to give it to you anyway as you might get pregnant.

The idea is not that doctors with-hold relevant information from patients

It is that all females from the age of 10 to 50 not be treated in a blanket manner as nothing more than walking wombs, and have their choices restricted accordingly.

Out of interest, has anyone ever seen or heard of a blanket "recommendation" or urge of "caution" aimed at all men and boys in their fertile years? Because of possible risk to potential babies that may be conceived? Especially one delivered by a major organisation like the WHO.

I'd be interested to hear.

But Seven, per the OP and the Ecigs caution, wasn't the doctor cautioning me about use of Treatment 1?

Any drug that might be prescribed is in a directory along with contraindications etc - if the caution isn't listed in there then the doctor might not know about it. So it has to be officially noted.

I haven't read the roaccutane thread but if the gist of that was, as I gather, that a woman was refused another treatment then that is wrong; telling her the various potential risk factors wouldn't have been wrong.

I agree that anything that affects sperm should be treated similarly to anything that affects eggs regarding medical flags.

ABland the link in the OP is a report by the WHO giving their stance on ecigs:

"This document was prepared in response to the request made by the Conference of the Parties
(COP) at its fifth session (Seoul, Republic of Korea, 12–17 November 2012) to the Convention
Secretariat to invite WHO to examine emerging evidence on the health impacts of electronic nicotine
delivery systems (ENDS) use and to identify options for their prevention and control, for
consideration at the sixth session of the COP. 1 This report incorporates the December 2013
deliberations and scientific recommendations on ENDS by the WHO Study Group on Tobacco
Product Regulation (TobReg), and analysis from a recent WHO survey on tobacco products."

It is not from an individual doctor to an individual patient. It is their recommendations overall which advise "caution" to all females of reproductive age.

Seven, but a doctor is prompted to provide cautions by a directory which contains a list of cautions. If the doctor knows the person in front of her/him has had a hysterectomy, for example, then they shouldn't mention that particular caution, but I think it needs to be a general caution for it to be in the directory. So maybe if a product wasn't suitable to be combined with alcohol, that would have to pop up on the cautions and if the doctor was prescribing to a ten year old, they probably wouldn't mention it.

It's not yet their stance. It's a paper ahead of aconference in October.

"So teenaged girls should be avoiding the activities that their male counterparts indulge in" - not on the basis of this paper, which gives the same advice to all adolescents.

Doctors don't prescribe ecigs

Additionally, the advice they have given is not restricted to women who are trying to conceive a baby. It is given to all females of childbearing age ie all females on the planet ages between around 10 and 50. Irrespective of their intention to procreate, their ability to procreate, etc.

It is a stance that advices all girls & women to moderate or pay extra caution to their behaviour in order to mitigate risks to foetuses that have not been and may never be conceived.

There have been moves in the US around considering girls and women to be "pre pregnant" and control aspects of their behaviour accordingly. Meanwhile, similar concerns about potential foetal issues due to compromised sperm quality do not result in a message of this type for all men & boys.

The adolescent females get a double whammy then.

And when they leave adolescence and the boys no longer have a word of "caution" from the WHO, the girls continue to do so until menopause, irrespective of whether they plan to have children, want children, or indeed are even capable of having children.

The moves in the US in some areas to consider all females between puberty and menopause as "pre pregnant" and thus have certain aspects of their behaviour controlled is very concerning and for the WHO as an extremely important body to use their approach and language adds weight to their ideas.

here's something about it

can't be bothered to google much tonight that was near the top!

this is older and from the guardian

You need to take it in tandem with the fact of prosecuting women in the US who damage their foetuses through various aspects of their behaviour, and that in the UK this approach is gaining ground.

Seven, I see this caution as the same as the doctor informing me about the risks of Treatment 1.

I hate the pre-pregnant thing in the US too, but I don't see this as part of that.