Smoking and pregnant women
Monday, February 23, 2009 The Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough is running a campaign to try and get women to quit smoking during pregnancy. They have asked Forest if we would support such a campaign.
It's a sensitive subject so I am struggling to think of a suitable reply. I don't condone women who smoke during pregnancy, but I don't condemn them out of hand either. Personally I think you should listen to your GP. At the very least you should err on the side of caution, just as you would with alcohol.
What I don't like are campaigns that go beyond education and become a moral crusade, implying that women who smoke during pregnancy are bad, immoral or, worse, guilty of child abuse.
Hopefully, the Evening Gazette campaign doesn't fall into this category. We'll see. Full report HERE.
Reader Comments (21)
This not something you know anything about. This deals with people in a situation you are never likely to shate. Simply mind your own business.
Sorry, a touch of keyboard dyslexia there. Share not shate. This stuff irritates me so much I lose it a bit when responding. Pregnant women are not a many-legged creature with one head, they are individual human beings. Best to let them make their own choices. Isn't this what this bog is all about. Silly me, pregnant women are public property, where did I get the idea that they might be individuals. Clearly I haven't been paying attention lately.
How did millions of babies survive the baby boom years when more women smoked and turned out to be healthy adults. Maybe for the same reason pregnant women should be stopped from going near roads to avoid traffic fumes.
I would hate to be pregnant now with all the anti-smoking messages banded about.
Pregnant women don't need the added stress of being labelled an unborn baby abuser/murderer - it's bad for mum and bad for baby.
I'd like to know how many pregant women are avoiding going to all their pre-natal check-ups as a result of this constant harrassment.
You could perhaps advise them of this that was prepared for the WHO:
"ETS exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer (odds ratio [OR] for ever exposure = 0.78; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.64–0.96)."
This is a statistically-significant result indicating a protective-effect to children from ETS.
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jnci%3b90/19/1440.pdf
Mind you, I don't think they're after a response like that are they?
I can only go from my own personal experiences. I smoked through all 3 of my pregnancies, in the days before you were made to feel guilty. All 3 of my children are healthy, have excellent school attendance records, and are very bright.
So much for the brainless, poorly children from smokers that they like to portray. Utter rubbish. Just look at the baby boom years when a huge percentage of the population smoked, and smoked everywhere.
Helen that is the long suppressed WHO 1998 study into passive smoking.
This is a study into Asthma and children of smokers and I quote.
"Smoking linked to reduced allergic sensitization By David Holmes 21 January 2008 J Allergy Clin Immunol 2008; 121: 38-42> MedWire News: Parental smoking during childhood and personal cigarette smoking in teenage and early adult life lowers the risk for allergic sensitization in those with a family history of atopy, according to the results of a study from New Zealand. Writing in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Robert Hancox (University of Otago, Dunedin) and colleagues explain that "the findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the immune-suppressant effects of cigarette smoke protect against atopy."
The authors write: "We found that children who were exposed to parental smoking and those who took up cigarette smoking themselves had a lower incidence of atopy to a range of common inhaled allergens.> "These associations were found only in those with a parental history of asthma or hay fever." They conclude: "The harmful effects of cigarette smoke are well known, and there are many reasons to avoid it.” Our findings suggest that preventing allergic sensitization is not one of them."
http://www.medwire-news.md/48/72330/Respiratory/Smoking_linked_to_reduced_allergic_sensitization_.html
Not forgetting the late Dr. KWE Denson, albeit a comment on smoking after pregnancy.
"Women who smoke after their first full-term pregnancy have half the risk of developing breast cancer."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3593568/Smoking-is-not-all-evil.html
I agree with Helen and all above. I smoked throughout both pregnancies and my children, born in the 60's, grew up in a smoker's house. They were healthy, happy and very rarely ill. They did brilliantly at school and have successful careers.
So much research has shown that children who grow up in a smoker's home have added immunity to many common illnesses.
I am still smarting from the thought of those dreadful pictures of children about to be aired on national TV together with the news that smoking causes 2000 deaths per day. WHERE are these piles of dead bodies?
What can we do about these lies and this exploitation of children? There MUST be something we can do.
The majority of the world's population smoked up until the 70's. Common sense alone tells us that if there was any truth at all in the smoking/passive smoking myth, there wouldn't be a single person alive in the world today.
Advertising standards? Abuse of children? Gross misuse of public money? False information? There MUST be a loophole somewhere which can expose this corrupt system.
I smoked during pregnancy with no harmful effects to any of my four babies. What did strike me as disgusting was when a women I was in hospital with, who had lost a baby, was made to feel as if it was all her own fault for smoking. There was absolutely no compassion from the medical staff at the time and the poor woman was treated like a pariah.A non-smoking mother who lost a baby was treated with more respect.
It is about who owns the body of a pregnant woman - the woman or the growing child. No doubt in the not too distant future, smoking mothers will be deemed as child abusers and have their babies snatched away at birth.
Simon, I'm not sure what Forest can do or say on a subject as sensitive as this but I would say Forest has a duty to do something to protect these women and the lifestyle choices they make.
No smoking, pregnant woman that I have ever known would have wilfully harmed her baby. In my day, we even had ashtrays beside our hospital bed ... oh, the good ole days ...*sigh*
I can only add to the weight of the anecdotal evidence here.
I was the second of five children born at home, on time, and none us weighed less than 8Lbs. My mother got through 40 tabs a day and I have a strong suspicion that she was chuffing away when I slipped out onto cold lino at 4:40 on a winters morn. Born in 1962 when everyone was smoking everywhere, (doctors, nurses and mid-wives too), I am not sure if I am a Boomer or a Generation X child.
(For the sake of completeness I should state that my old ma is now 70 and still holds down a full time job as a carer in an old folks home).
As others have said, it is for the individual mum-to-be to decide. Scientifically, (from the studies I have read), smoking 10 a day or less will have no impact on the developing child. Smoking during pregnancy protects against pre-eclampsia, which carries off more than 1,000 new mums and hundreds of new-borns every year.
Differences in birth weight is measurable in mere grams, so is not significant.
I also think that mums to be are bullied into quitting and this causes stress which can lead to miscarriage and placental abrubtion.
1] "I don't condone women who smoke... but..."
2] "Personally I think you should listen to
your GP."
Yes, please try to do something to help these poor persecuted women, Simon, however, PLEASE don't use phrases like your two above.
Enough has been written and researched on all these pro-choice sites to convince even a non-smoker like you that there ARE health benefits in smoking.
Why do you still sit on the fence? Which part of the antis' bogus science do you believe?
Advising a women to follow her doctor's advice is pointless. All practising MDs are conditioned to stop people smoking. They have no choice in the matter. One day, perhaps, the possibility of commission they may receive for promoting NRT might, at last, be revealed.
It really is up to the woman concerned and it is very important that her pregnancy be happy and comfortable.
I chose not to have children, so I’m not sure if I’m the right person to comment – but it amazes me how much pregnant women are being bullied nowadays. About a year ago one of my clients threw a party which I attended. I was chatting with one of their employees, a young woman who was pregnant at the time. Of course, she never touched the wine – but I’ve already grown used to pregnant women being convinced they shouldn’t even think about drinking alcohol. What amazed me more was that this has apparently been extended to food as well. The serving staff were carrying around plates of canapes and this woman pointed at every single one of them (the canapes, not the staff), asking: “What’s this?” The people at the prenatal clinic had given her a list as long as my arm of all the foods she should avoid because there’s a one in a gazillion chance it would cause her to have a three-headed baby (or something like that).
I tried to point out to her that the risk posed by something like smoked salmon was infinitely small and she ran a much greater risk, statistically speaking, by just getting out of bed each morning to go to work and she did that without a second thought, didn’t she? She wouldn’t listen of course.
Two weeks later she rang me to say she’d fallen off the stairs. Thank heavens her baby was allright, but she had to literally ‘sit’ out the rest of her pregnancy because of a broken kneecap.
Why women let themselves be brainwashed like this, I’ll never understand.
May I offer my own personal point of view as a male with no medical qualifications, nevertheless, a person who listens to all points of view with an open mind.
The poison is in the dose. I would say that because a pregnant woman is calling on many physical sources to develop a child within her, then it would be erring on the side of caution to try and reduce some of her consumption of leishure, including alcoholic beverage and tobacco. The expression I used was try and reduce, not stop altogether, this is unnecessary.
Another point is this. Quite a few pregnant women suffer with pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure whilst pregnant. If a woman was unfortunate enough to be suffering this problem, which could potentially damage both her and the baby, and she was a smoker who tried to stop, it would cause further aggravation to her pre-eclampsia. I would even go as far as to say that if a pregnant smoker tried to stop completely, it might even cause pre-eclampsia.
This is very true, Timbone. In fact, if a woman whose body has thrived on the benefits of nicotine suddenly has it withdrawn this could damage herself and the baby in many ways.. She would probably be offered Nicotine Replacement Therapy instead, but what is this "therapy", why just good old fashioned nicotine, of course.
We live in a mad crazy world where nicotine is taken away with one hand and given back as a pharmaceutical product with the other. The pharmaceutical products, especially in tablet form, can have very damaging side effects too.
One's own body dictates what is best during pregnancy - hence the strange foods that women sometimes crave. We should leave well alone and let nature take its course, while keeping an eye on blood pressure, etc. High blood pressure can be a problem during pregnancy but in my own case, probably because I smoke,I had low blood pressure. I still have. Similarly, excess weight can be put on during pregnancy. In my case, again, this did not happen. In fact I can still wear the clothes I wore at age 21 and I am now 75 and still healthy - still working.
[No, I don't do the mutton dressed as lamb, honest Guv, and the clothes have been washed.] My story is commonplace. There are thousands like me.
I hardly feel qualified to comment as, to be perfectly frank and with a modest twirl of the tache, I may say that I find the whole business of regeneration somewhat yucky.
Why does my very strong pipe tobacco, and also very large Habanos, carry the warning, "smoking when pregnant harms your baby" ? Just who are these religious(?) nutters trying to target?
These is little or no scientific evidence to support the anti-smokist position. Bring back Torquemada
This type of campaign makes me shudder. There's no middle ground, no compromise, it's all or nothing. The pressure on expectant mothers by this type of campaign must be horrendous. The potential 'harm' to the unborn is grossly overstated and a more practical, achievable aim would be to encourage those who smoke to cut down if they can't/won't stop altogether. However, I doubt that the antismoking message will deviate from its path of righteousness, even if that path leads to open hostility towards pregnant women who smoke. It's time for more honesty and less scaremongering, more sensible advice and less demonisation. Incidentally, I think the low birthweight thing backfired as young mothers now believe that smoking = a lower birthweight = easier birth! The constant barrage of antismoking propaganda is alienating those that they profess to want to 'help' and these women are more likely to lie about their smoking status to avoid the lectures.
Ask yourself this, Simon, if you were fighting a war in the jungle, and was captured by the enemy, lined up against a tree to be shot, and then asked, by your captors, if you happened to have any bullets you could lend them, what would you say?
Rhetorical question of course, but hopefully, you can see my point?
Supporting the enemy's campaign in any way, is exactly the same, you are supplying them with the ammunition, which will eventually kill you.
As a sort of P.S., have any of these "campaigning" groups, ever supported anything which Forest proposed?
Simon, you should tell those wankers in the Evening Gazette to go take a running jump. Why they should ask Forest to support them is some cheek when you are trying to promote civil liberties. Wouldnt it be a great coup for them to be able to say that Forest the pro smoking lobby says pregnant women should not smoke.
The slimey turds must have acquired a labour spin doctor to think up that one.
I feel sorry for pregnant women of the present day, they must be under tremendous pressure from the smoking nazis, when in fact it is their own personal right to do what they see fit during their own pregnancy.
A newspaper report of yesterday will give you an idea of whats going on with regard to these so called campaigns and I quote "36 EU quangos costing taxpayers 2billion a year were labelled 'not fit for purpose'.
It went on to say that a report into the growth of publicly funded EU agencies said many were duplicating work carried out at national level and were squeezing out privat sector rivals and recommended curbing their activities and closing some of them down.
Until 1999 there were 2 EU quangos now there are 34, the most costly being the Research Agency to 'stimulate scientific excellence' that got a budget last year of 518million.
I was pleased when the reports spokeswoman for Global Vision described the EU's quangos as 'simply beyong a joke' and that they were simply not fit for purpose in the 21st century.
So I would suggest that Forest tell the Gazette likewise, when replying.
I have just finished reading Helen Daniels report (EU commission Confirms Suspicions).
Maybe if The Evening Gazette would print this it would point pregnant women to something resembling the truth.
I would encourage everyone to use their eyes and believe what they see.
Women have smoked for centuries and the world has not been depopulated.
A bit of common sense should tell The Gazette not to wind up pregnant women.
My wife is eight months pregnant and still working. Being self employed,she has had no time off but does enjoy the odd smoke. She also enjoys an egg, an occasional half glass of wine, a curry, chocolate, crisps, cheese etc all things supposedly bad for you. However,she has everything in moderation and to date, other than some heartburn she has had a great pregnancy and most importantly stress free.
She was asked about Nicotine Replacement Therapy but she lied and told the doctors that she had stopped smoking altogether. They believe her because the baby is the correct weight and height for this time. One doctor complimented her on stopping smoking and said that was why her pregnancy was going so well.
I am not an expert in these fields but I do believe that stress is a much bigger killer than the odd cigarette or a runny egg. Hopefully all will continue to go well but I would advise any pregnant woman to do what they feel best doing and not to listen to all the rubbish bandied about by self interests.
It seems that a meaningful campaign has been launched to increase awareness of the dangers of women smoking during pregnancy. The campaign’s aim should spread the message that every cigarette harms and restricts the essential oxygen supply to an unborn baby. These campaigns should be encouraged.
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