Smoking in Pregnancy

This is a serious problem because there are two people involved: the mother and the baby. If she smokes, the baby smokes – in the sense that poisons from tobacco smoke reach the baby through the mother’s bloodstream and the placenta.

There is, rightly, great concern in medical circles for women not to smoke during pregnancy. But this problem is fundamentally no different from that of anyone else smoking.

It is scandalous that a pregnant woman, if she is so inclined, can walk into any corner shop or supermarket and buy a pack of poison (cigarettes) just like that.

How much easier would the problem be if it were illegal to smoke during pregnancy! And how much easier it would be for pregnant women to avoid smoking if cigarettes were no longer available!

In the posts under this heading I take a satirical look at some of the efforts of the Tobacco Control lobby to deal with the problem of smoking during pregnancy.

Blame the Government if you Can’t Stop Smoking!

In ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) Daily News of 20 October 2017 there appears a commentary on a report lamenting recent cuts to local authority stop-smoking budgets. Ms Hazel Cheeseman, Director of Policy at ASH, has this to say: Without high quality local services in place vulnerable groups of smokers, such as pregnant women or smokers needing [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-04T05:44:44+00:0020 October 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Smoking in Pregnancy|

Nasty Juice Yummier Than Fruit

There is no doubt that e-cigarettes are big business. The flyer I received recently about the forthcoming Vapexpo conference in Paris lists around two hundred brands of e-cigarette liquid from sixteen countries. Promoted on the misleading meme that e-cigarettes help smokers quit, if anyone has any doubts that vaping is drug addiction by other means, they only need [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-05-30T10:19:26+00:0020 September 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Smoking Alternatives, Smoking in Pregnancy, Vaping|

Stigmatization of Pregnant Smokers

When I used to work in obstetrics (care of pregnant women) certain routine tests were carried out at each attendance, such as checking the urine and measuring the blood pressure. The reason was that these tests can give early warning of serious problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and then the appropriate action could be taken. [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-10-23T00:32:11+00:0030 August 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine gum, Nicotine Patches, Smoking in Pregnancy, Vaping|

How to Solve the Problem of Smoking in Pregnancy

In October 2015 in the UK a report was published called Smoking Cessation in Pregnancy: A Review of the Challenge. It was endorsed by no less than twenty-one worthy organisations such as Action on Smoking and Health, Bliss (‘for babies born too soon, too small, too sick’), the Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association, and the like. The [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-07-08T01:59:14+00:0024 August 2017|Categories: Nicotine Addiction, Smoking in Pregnancy|