On a personal note, my mom smoked like a chimney for my older brother. He is a disgustingly healthy, strapping 6’2 / 182cm? 49 year old who looks like a viking [ that big strapping blond with ruddy beard configuration]. She had pneumonia the summer after she had him from almost drowning, and I am the one she had 2 years after she quit - I am diabetic, have asthma, had chronic bronchitis and pneumonia every winter until I was 13 years old … and my eyesight sucks, but since pretty much everybody in the family has glasses that isn’t too abnormal.
Of the 2 of us, I look like the smoker baby not aruBro.
Personally, I despise smoking. My mother smoked while pregnant with me, and didn’t quit until I was a teenager. I’ve had a lifetime of increased susceptibility to upper respiratory infections (I get bronchitis at least twice a year - everyone I know says I get sick more than anyone they know), even though I’ve never smoked. I can’t prove that mom’s smoking caused it, but I strongly suspect it’s a factor. At any rate, I hate smoking and everything to do with it.
But, like the OP, I keep my thoughts to myself when I’m around smokers. Blowing off some steam in the Pit doesn’t seem like a crime against humanity to me. The OP (and I) are minding our own business by not telling people off, but ought to be allowed to express our opinions here on an internet message board without being accused of trying to be “police” about it. (Of course, I do acknowledge that the OP said something about “pregnant women who harm their unborn child should be arrested” - and I think that was over-the-top for the situation. But it’s just his/her opinion and can’t be enforced on anyone.)
I don’t think anyone should harangue pregnant women for smoking, because they have all those hormones surging through their veins, and they may stab you.
However, I wanted to share a story. A few years ago I met a woman who was 8 months pregnant, and we had a conversation. The whole time she was lighting cigarettes off each other, and pounding beers.
She told me, without a trace of irony, that she wasn’t going to have an ultrasound because she had heard it could cause hearing loss for her baby.
Ummm you’re kidding, right? this thread IS ABOUT PREGNANT WOMEN! The anger was/is not about this pregnant woman risking her own health, it’s about the UNBORN CHILD her body is helping to develop. IF she smokes, the baby smokes; if she drinks alcohol, the baby drinks alcohol…etc. And in case you have difficulty processing information (did your mom smoke while you were in her womb?), I didn’t lecture this woman or give her dirty looks–I minded my own business, but that doesn’t mean I can’t vent my frustration on an appropriate board such as this one. Get it?
Complacency is not the answer–not mine anyway. When a child is at risk everyone should be concerned… I’m guessing you couldn’t give a flying cough well you know what. When a child is a victim, we should all be concerned. When an amber alert comes to my attention, I feel really sad … and I do believe that is a normal reaction… for normal compassionate people, that is. Whether the child is at 30wks gestational age, 4yrs old, or 13 yrs old, if someone else is causing them intentional harm, the person(s) causing their harm go on my SHIT LIST. That means, generally speaking, I simply despise those types of people. They don’t get any pity whatsoever, and they shouldn’t!
I don’t remember exactly, but I think her mother did say that it could be why she was so small and that the doctor said that MIGHT have been the cause of her eye problems. I haven’t talked to her for almost ten years, so it’s a little hazy.
Sorry, you’re right, I shouldn’t made it sound like it was certain.
Now, mind you, I don’t believe we should go up to random pregnant smokers and start berating them. And I think the OP is an idiot.
duffer, I’m not an expert, but I believe most abortions are performed within the first trimester. Certainly not after six months, except in emergencies.
Ha! I love threads like these, lots o’ venting, no resolutions. It’s all a manner of perspective. The times they have changed. When my mother was pregnant with little ol’ me, our chain-smoking family doctor told her: to combat morning sickness, etc. , have a couple of beers. To combat stress or depression, take up smoking.
As Dave Barry says: You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
Y’know pace, I personally don’t hate pregnant smokers nearly as much as I hate assholes who spread dumbass anti-vaccination theories around the internet. Or parents stupid enough to rail against vaccination on the basis of such theories.
I hate smoking as much as the next guy. Keep that crap out of my face, out of my house, out of my workplace, out of any business or entertainment or other public establishment I might want to go to. I feel exactly the same way about people using alcohol.
Other than that, it’s none of my business. So long as it’s not in my face, it’s none of my business what a stranger is doing with tobacco and it’s none of my business whether she’s pregnant or just overweight. It’s none of my business to even have an opinion about it.
It’s just that I wrote about four posts before that one, each saying something like “Oh yah? Well, my friend has a picture of her mom, when she was pregnant with my friend, smoking a fag, with an ashtray on her belly, and SHE turned out fine!” And I kept not posting them because I figured hey, anecdote, data, pointless, etc. So finally you post one … then I post one … then we have pages and pages of anecdotes featuring various permutations and combinations of healthy children born to smoky mothers, and unhealthy children born to non-smoky mothers, and so on, and so forth, and before you know it we’re talking about cigar-smoking mothers being born to children who eat stupid food for breakfast, and then where are we?
Darn it. Now I feel like having a cigarette. AND a baby.
