Smoking while pregnant anyone?

Rachie_B

i dont smoke,never have

but a friend of mine has just given birth a few weeks ago and she was told to "cut down as stopping completely will be more harmful"

?!!!! so she carried on the whole way through !!!

she ate really well ,took her vitamins etc but then smoked,what was the point ?!!! IMO

all those who DID smoke in pregnancy did you do it in public??? didnt you get stares / remarks ?!!!

i hate to see someone smoking just pushing a pram / buggy etc

but a smoking pregnant lady ,makes for very sad viewing IMO

even if you go back to smoking when baby is born ,outside of course ! ..........

surely its worth the "stress " etc so stop for the 40 approx weeks of pregnancy while your baby "cooks" ?!!!

pitdog

personally i think it would be more harmful to the child for you to smoke after its born wen its breathing in second hand smoke etc..... im a smoker myself but will not smoke in front of/ in same room as children, but i also will not lecture people who to choose to smoke, the fact that you are on here askin for advice suggests that you respect and are concerned about your childrens health so well done you !!

missk_ensington

rainbowrisin wrote:

If smokers are more likely to have smaller babies (as the information Ted posted seemed to suggest), why is that a bad thing?

It isn't because it would hurt a hell of a lot less pushing it out!

I found out I was pregnant at 7 weeks and smoked until I was about 12 weeks (although I did cut down from 10 a day to 3-5 a day)I stopped at 12 weeks and started again when DS was about 5 weeks old.

It is very hard to stop, after all it is an addiction, but my personal view is that everything an expecting mother eats, drinks, inhales is directly feeding the unborn child through the placenta, so in essence your baby is smoking. It is probably not much better than blowing smoke in a newborn baby's face.

However, my Mother in Law smoked, my Grandma smoked and many others I know while they were pregnant and had healthy babies. Thing is, if you smoke you may appear to have a baby that is perfectly healthy, but who's to say that baby wouldn't have had a higher IQ if you didn't smoke, or a better immune system, or less allergies. Who's to say? It's something we may never be conculsive about.

vik6525

I didnt find out I was ecpecting my ds until I was nearly 7 months gone! (before anyone says anything, I still had periods, I only put on about 4 lbs in weight, honestly, i really had no idea!) I gave up the second i found out, but until that point i had lived a proper 'party girl' lifestyle. I smoked heavily, I drank like a bloody fish, and went out clubbing nearly every night. My son was 10lb 8 when he was born and is totally fine. Im not for one second saying that what I did was fine (Because i didnt know, I had no reason to stop) but what i am saying is that personally, I think there are many factors that make a baby healthy, and that sometimes, just sometimes, the stress of changing your lifestyle completly may cause the baby more harm than just 'modifying' your habits a bit...

black-saturn

In the olden days (at the risk of sounding old) it was the fashion to smoke and they didn't know it had any health risks at all. My nan smoked whilst pregnant, my mum smoked whilst pregnant and my boyfriends mum and nan smoked whilst pregnant but there were more instances of miscarriage and small babies in those days.

rainbowrisin

Firefly wrote:

As a parent to be, surely anyone who is lucky enough to be pregnant should be thinking of giving their child every opportunity for a good start in this world and not depriving them of oxygen.

Parenthood is often about putting a childs needs before your own and this is a good opportunity for your friend to start doing so. However much she needs to smoke, get her to consider all those premature babies who are struggling for breath on ventilators and in incubators. Perhaps a chat with the midwife so that she can go and see them for herself.

Good luck to her but smoking really shouldn't even be an option.

I'm not sure that scaring the poor woman senseless by urging her to consider what a tough time premature babies have is going to help her give up smoking. If anything it will probably make her even more desperate for a ciggie.
I think sometimes we can get too obsessive about this whole lifestyle thing and pregnancy - there was an initiative a few years back in America where the babies of mothers who took crack cocaine were automatically taken away at birth, because it was reckoned the mother was unfit because she had treated her child so badly in the womb - the initiative was abandoned when it was found the vast majority of the babies were perfectly healthy.
I don't mean to be emotive or controversial, but ultimately the mother's rights come before those of the foetus until the baby is born - if mothers make unwise lifestyle choices during the pregnancy then they are entitled to do that.
I think mothers-to-be need as much help and support they can get, including additional assistance with smoking cessation if they feel able to battle an addiction at such a stressful time in their lives.
That said, if they are unable or unwilling to change their lifestyle then that's their perogative - judgemental attitudes to put pregnant women on a guilt trip don't really achieve anything as i see it.

SammyD_2

rainbowrisin wrote:

If smokers are more likely to have smaller babies (as the information Ted posted seemed to suggest), why is that a bad thing?

I think the research mentioned on average the smokers' babies were 205g smaller than the non-smokers - isn't 205g about 7oz?

I'm a non-smoker, so the whole smoking when pregnant thing passed me by - I just wonder if anyone can tell me why having a baby that might have been less than half a pound bigger if you hadn't smoked is a bad thing?

Don't mean to hi-jack the thread, but would be interested if anyone knows.
Thanks

Ummm, where to start??? Small babies are more likely to have breathing problems, find it harder to regulate their temperature (which gives rise to various issues including greater risk of cot deat), greater risk of brain haemorrage, more risk of intestinal problems, etc etc. The reason they are small is because they have not grown in the womb to the extent expected ie their growth has been !!!!!!.

There are lots of reasons for this of course (not just smoking) and as other posters have said, smoking does not mean you will end up with a small baby. But you are more likely to end up with a small baby than if you did not smoke. Equally, small babies do not necessarily end up with health problems, they are more likely to than bigger babies.

There is also lots of evidence (especially from the United States) of a link between birth weight and later intelligence.

A quick google search give you more information.

rainbowrisin

What's classed as a "small" baby then?
Mine were 9lb 8oz, 8lb 7oz and 8lb 2oz, so even if they were all half a pound lighter due to smoking they would have weighed in at 9lb, 7lb 15oz and 7lb 10oz respectively.

Crispy_Ambulance

There will always be someone who smoked all the way through pregnancy and had healthy babies. Just as there is always someone who smoked and drank and lived to be 100.

However, there is lots and lots of evidence that smoking endangers the health of mothers and babies. And no evidence whatsoever that it has any health benefits at all.

We know that smoking increases the risk of cot death. We know that smokers are more likely to have children with low birthweight - and that doesn't mean they are easier to give birth to - it means they are at greatly increased risk of stillbirth and a variety of health complications.

If the health of your children isn't a good enough reason to give up, what is?

missk_ensington

crispy ambulance - I was only joking when I said they would be easier to give birth to! I wasn't actually being serious!