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?

ABland, it's not the same because ecigs are not a medicine they are a consumer product. This advice, if it survives October's debate, will not filter down to doctors' prescribing practices * but to public health policy - it's much more akin to advising ALL women of reproductive age to take a folic acid supplement or avoid soft cheese or alcohol or coffee ... just in case. Have you ever seen that dreadful symbol they put on some wine bottles? Now imagine it's not a picture of a pregnant woman but just a woman.

• to complicate matters, there are two ecigs which are in the process of getting medicinal licences which will probably be granted at some point this year. There will be nothing different about these two except they will likely contain much higher nicotine levels.

Hmm, ok. I didn't really think about it being a consumer product.

But I think it's right that the package say, "CAUTION: Nicotine has harmful effects on sperm, eggs and developing foetuses so use of this product should be ceased immediately in the event that you or your partner plan to become pregnant" - or something like that?

The potential effect is more harmful/likely than that of soft cheese etc, if I understand correctly, so it seems right to have a more weighty and specific caution than the general public health message on soft cheese (plus Ecigs are more packaged than cheese and already have warnings on, I think)

I suppose my starting point is that the manufacturers will put on as few warnings as they can by choice, and only the mandate of public health bodies (like regular cigarettes) force the warnings.

So if I was a man or woman considering this product and also thinking of TTC down the road somewhere, I would want the cautionary information on the product, and I don't see how it gets there without bodies like WHO, the FDA etc mandating it?

Without wanting to get too heavily into the ecig debate on this thread -

The potential effect is more harmful/likely than that of soft cheese etc, if I understand correctly

Not really. The problem with soft cheese is that it can cause listeriosis which, while rare, is likely to cause miscarriage or stillbirth.

Nicotine, while not ideal in pregnancy, is routinely prescribed to pregnant women in the form of NRT to help keep them off the fags. Yes, it has a few small risks associated with it (about on a par with caffeine) but the big risk of smoking in pregnancy is oxygen deprivation from all that carbon monoxide. This is absent in both NRT and ecigs. Once the first ecigs get medicinal licences it's only a matter of time before they are prescribed to PG women alongside gum, patches and inhalators.

if I was a man or woman considering this product ...

... you would almost without exception be already a smoker who was looking for ways to reduce harm and/or quit. ASH's figures bear this out: Less than 1 per cent of never smokers have ever tried electronic cigarettes and virtually none continue to use them. Unlike soft cheese, ecigs are not something people just decide to try on a whim.

We do need better labelling but it needs to be honest and proportionate (unlike the labelling regime that's currently in the EU pipeline). Incidentally, most manufacturers already voluntarily label the products with warnings about ingestion and addiction - the two main hazards.

------
This is all really beside the point of this thread though. I'm not so concerned with warnings about using products during pregnancy (within reason - do you remember a couple of years ago when PG women were advised to avoid 'household chemicals'? ), I am concerned with blanket warnings directed at 'women of reproductive age' because it helps create a climate where policing women's behaviour - all women's behaviour - becomes acceptable. What's happening in the US wrt this is frankly terrifying but I had always thought it was quite extremist. If the WHO are now adopting this kind of language that means it's becoming mainstream.

How would you feel about warnings on bottles of wine directed at all women of reproductive age?

AuntieStella I am just now getting round to looking at your links.

That Surgeon General's report is massive! The executive summary is 36 pages of close type.

I think my best bet is to write to Jane Ellison, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health. I have had a bit of a nose round and I found this from a few years back:

"I am firmly pro-choice but my instinct is that we have to keep up with medical advancement so I would support a reduction of a couple of weeks but nothing more."

So she's not actually that pro-choice but could possibly be persuaded to be concerned about pre-pregnant type wording?

I agree the wording is completely wrong at 'women of a reproductive age'. Policing women's behaviour as they are little more than walking wombs is demeaning and backwards. If this attitude is unchecked feminism will have been for nothing.

Thanks for the extra info Plenty, I'll think about what you've said.