The trouble with "healthy living advice" is that it depends too much on making the "unhealthy" feel guilty, and the "healthy" rightous. It feeds into that rather vile tendency we have to see our conforming selves as somehow superior- without any understanding of other peoples lives. It also often grossly overstates the case for doing what we should do. It is invariably over simplistic.

Yes smoking has adverse effects on unborn children. Babies heart rates increase when mothers smoke (but their little hearts are usually quite healthy)they are often lighter at birth, there may be tiny risk of miscarriage and so on. So of course it goes without saying that mothers should give up.

BUT and this is a HUGE BUT a mother's stress is also bad for her unborn baby and can have many of the same effects- and others besides. Not all expectant mothers have calm easy lives where stress is easily avoided. If the choice is stress, drugs, drink, or cigarettes- and for some that is a real choice- then cigarettes are easily the lesser of those evils.

Health has become the basis for acceptable prejudice these days. Take weight as another example. If we are overweight-the attitude is that we get all we deserve -and the expectation is we will die young. It's nonsense. As the world gets fatter life expectancy increases. Being a little bit overweight may increase health risks by a tiny tiny amount (decimal places of percentage points in most cases)but it is not going to make us drop dead tomorrow. How many plump smoking pensioners do you know? To read the press sometimes you would think they did not exist!

Ideally we should be slim non smoking, occasional drinking, vegetable eating, exersise taking, stress free.........but sometimes we just have toi do the best we can until life settles down- if it ever does.
Dorothy Einon.

some one commented that as my husband still smokes the passive smoking is worse than if i wer to smoke. well 1stly he doesnt smoke in the house and 2ndly he now no longer lives wit me due to a situation 2weeks ago which i will not get into. but this has added even more stress on me as i dont have a clue what the future holds for my marriage all i do know is he has to find sumwer more permanant to live as at mo he is wit his sis and i dont know how im gonna afford a mortgage and 2babies on SMP im goin thru so much sh1t at the mo worring what will happen next. he is stressed as both my husband and his sis are dealing with goin to court to face the man who sexually abused them as children. im still at work tho ive had a lot of illness and been in hospital but cant afford to go off yet as my husband has not worked in 8months and is on incapasity benefit due to depression and yet i have not smoked tho god id love to have just 1 but i wont and all those smokers sayin dont judge us we arent bad parents i never z u wer i z i feel it is selfish and i am entitled to my opinion. all those women who have stopped should be congratulated as they r far stronger than those who didnt. well done to u and may every1 smoker or not have healthy happy babies and all the best for the future.

hi hun,god youve got it rough.ive been there to.trust me,i know its not easy.if you ever wanna talk.just add me
xxx

Hey. I totally agree wiv u nessandjon. Sum people take it too far wiv ther comments about us bein selfish for smoking. Fair enuf, all of u were strong enuf to do it and quit but obviously that means thats ur first priority. My first priority is to try and get my relationship bak or come to terms wiv the fact that its over and im gonna have to be a single mum. My other priorities r also finding a flat, coming up wiv the cash to decorate and furnish it, go out and buy all my babys things like pram cot etc by myself and do all this withinh 13 weeks. And also having to deal wiv the abuse i have been getn for deciding not to abort my baby and also to try and get through every night wivout crying as much so if i have a fag i dont give a f**k wot people say to that cos wiv everything i have to deal wiv just now the only thing i see as a comfort to me is a quick smoke. And aslo, i come on here for sum comfort but yet i just get irritated instead by people who think they r hot shit for giving up and thinking they can judge us. Get a life! If u have a problem wiv us smoking then fine but keep it to yourselves wiv out bragging and main out that u r better people than us!

I know i said i wouldn't reply to any non-smokers or ex-smokers comments but i feel the need to just say a couple more things. you all seem to think (with exception to a couple of you), that none of us smokers know the full extent of the risks of smoking while pregnant otherwise we would give up. you seem to think that we are all for smoking while pregnant, that we think theres nothing wrong with smoking while pregnant, you think were selfish and that were putting our babies in harms way because we dont care about the risks, that we'd rather have a fag than think about the risks, you say we only argue back because 'were so damn guilty'.well, We all know the health risks, dont think for one minute that we dont care what we may be doing to our unborn baby/babies, we do, were not arguing that it's ok to smoke, we know it's wrong, we know were guilty and believe me, every time we have a fag, we feel more guilty than anyone could ever accuse us of being. I congratulate anyone who managed to give up smoking whether pregnant or not, i've lost count at the amount of times i've tried to do it. and yes i really believed that when i became pregnant, that would be the motivation i needed to quit(i tried but still couldn't quit), it's just not that easy for everyone to do. i'm not saying you lot (i mean no offence by 'you lot', it's just easier than saying ex-smokers and non-smokers every time) didn't find it hard to give up, i'm sure you did. I think all i'm trying to say is that everyone finds different things harder to do than others, just because smoking while pregnant is wrong, doesn't mean it's ok to judge people like us the way you do.('PEOPLE LIKE US', i write about myself like this too, so you see, i mean no offence by it). everyone has their downfalls and weaknesses, this is ours, we feel bad enough about it, we dont need people slagging us off for it too.

this post is aimed at hjsmummy.i owe you an apology for sayin some of the stuff i have,im just very upset because i have tried to quit and dont like being told im selfish when im trying my best.i am a good mom and will always be whether i succeed in this or not.i am desperatley tryin to quit now and im not even pregnant at the moment but thats why im tryin so hard so that when i am pregnant well a fag wont even cross my mind then.well thats the idea anyway.
whether i quit or not though i love my daughter with all my heart and no matter what anyone says i wont beat myslef up anymore about it.i wish you all the luck in the world with the rest of your pregnancy,now just please leave the smokers who are tryin their best to quit to get on with it.dont make us feel any more bad then we already do,cus we are tryin,we really are and people havin ago at us just makes it harder.once again apologys for getting personal with this issue

yes you did do the right things hjsmummy.and you should be veryproud of yourself for that.i would be if id managed to quit whilst pregnant.
im only so defensive because youre looking down on those of us who did smoke.not everyone finds it as easy as you to just quit.
just becasue we smoke doesnt make us selfish,or bad parents and we certainly DO deserve to be pregnant.
i know this wasnt you who wrote this part but one woman on this post put she would call her sister a murderer if she lost her baby because she smokes.now thats discusting,people should support eachother not judge.im still tryin 2 quit now and im not pregnant at the moment but im really tryin so that when we do my baby has got a good chance but the last time i was pregnant i wasnt tryin n i just couldnt give in,its just not that easy.i would never expect you to change your views and condone smoking,not for one minute would i expect you to do that.what i do expect off people is to understand that not everyone finds things that easy and were being looked down on.thats why im getting angry at certain posts on this thread.im certainly not bullying you but i will always stand up for myself whether any of you like that or not

right up to THIS point i havnt strayed from the subject... however... i dont know who you think you are... your the bloody bully... "PEOPLE" like us..... ?????????????? thats people who did the right thing. your only so defensive because your so damn guilty. like ive said a hundred times before, youll never be right and youll never be able to make my arguements against smoking wrong. the least you could do is have an "ADULT" conversation... "if thats what you call yourself"...... of course i judge... im human... we all do it..... just like your judging me. i mean now, im not even a PERSON! that a good one stacey186..... im quite happy to answer your posts each and everytime. you just keep on making yourself look like a child. im quite happy to entertain your need for an arguement. i mean, i have a 1yr old. im used to it. im just hoping that maybe, as you read at least one post on this thread you might learn a little something about the health issues caused by smoking. in fact why dont you back track a little coz im sure ive said it all before...