What **Dangerosa ** said. Is there a woman alive who somehow missed the memo that smoking while pregnant may result in premature birth, low birth weight, various birth defects, and eternal damnation? The warning is on the package, and the message is all around her. If she’s somehow still ignorant of it, then IMO, a little asthma is going to be the least of her kid’s problems.
So, if you don’t actually intend to educate, then clearly your intent is to shame, chastise, and condescend. In which case, you’re being an asshole.
Dangerosa, you are a truely honest debator and I respect your POV. You are probably right that I am not going to change a pregnant woman’s POV towards smoking, BUT by my background in working with the DD population, I personally can’t in good conscious ignore the habit and make the attempt to communicate what I know (the knowledge that 30% of the clients I work with are from smoking/drinking mothers). Rather than be an impersonal PSA, I want to let the pregnant woman know that there are real people with real issues that are PERMANENT, not just the low birth rate preemies, that we (social service field) take care of for life. I see some of our parents mentally beating themselves up over this as well, because of the preventative steps they ignored or didn’t know about. “If they had told us, I would not have done it.”, is a common line heard from (vice abusing) mothers of DD child. So, when I approach a smoking mother (which is quite rare nowadays), I don’t do it to act all high and mighty, I don’t do to enslave the whole female gender, I don’t do it to start a fight, I don’t do it because I am an anti-smoking nut.
I do it FOR them…although I must admit (and you pointed it out) that I am naively thinking that this person will stop on a dime and change their ways. But I can have hope and faith that maybe one will, can’t I?
You have missed the gist of my posts. My first intention IS to educate…and if that makes me an asshole, Diana G, then I am more than happy to accept that as a compliment. The gist of your posts is that the current system of PSAs and literature is good enough and that everyone should just turn a blind eye towards something that most everyone knows is wrong…heh, sorry…I didn’t get THAT memo.
You can, but despite your good intentions, you are being rude and making unwelcome comments. You can’t understand how intrusive a pregnancy is - all by itself without comments. Something else is living in YOUR body and you make changes to your life to support that - willingly and happily or grudgingly or just because you can’t sleep on your stomach any longer. Then the intrusion from outside starts, everyone is good intentioned, but its exhausting at a point in your life where your physical situation has already exhausted you and the hormones have already stretched your emotions to the breaking point. Some people have good points in their comments, and some are just ignorant, but it starts the moment you start showing and doesn’t really stop until your children become adults - the looks while you carry your cup of Starbucks (decaf) or drink a nearbeer in a bar, or stand near a smoker, or let yourself have one can of Coke. And later when you let your kids drink pop or they are too loud in a restaurant or your child throws a tantrum or your fourteen year old refuses to dress properly. Perhaps smoking is worth a comment from a stranger, but the risks are small and the chance the comment does any good small that it fails to pass my threshhold for risk intervention - I really didn’t need to justify to strangers why I still drank coffee or ate at McDonalds or was giving my newborn a bottle instead of breastfeeding, but people expected me to justify it. My body doesn’t become public property because I am with child. My actions are not open to additional questioning by society because I’m visibly pregnant. I still deserve to be treated like a functioning adult human being and shown the same courtesy.
…And again, I state that I only limit my discussion to habits that are obviously detrimental. As for others who nitpick over sodas, coffee, etc…I’m not in that camp because I assume that the soda and coffee is decaffinated whereas a cigarette is toxic no matter what kind of cig it is. I’ve watched my wife have 3 pregnancies to term, 2 miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy that required surgery. I know people mean well when they inquire and our response is “Thanks” or “No Thanks”. My wife doesn’t smoke and never has, so we haven’t been approached before with any disdainful looks or comments, which I still don’t advocate in the first place. But I will say something when someone is doing something obviously detrimental to her baby. I guess that goes for sniffing glue, spray paint, or sucking on car exhaust, all of which is somewhat similar to smoking cigs.