I was tempted to post this image of a newspaper clipping under “Humor,” but more than anything, it’s just really sad. Smoking will do more harm than jackhammers ever will, Ms. Williamson.
Smoking during pregnancy has a number of risk factors for the mother and the fetus. Please, for the health of your child, don’t do it.
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Just randomly found your blog, but read this post with some interest… At first I thought it was fake, but I looked it up, and here’s the skinny: Pregnant Pause.
Definitely not very funny. Ironic maybe, but not light-hearted, that’s for sure.
Of course I don’t get bent out of shape when I see a pregnant woman smoking, since knowing about how many women drink booze and smoke crack, and god only knows what else, while pregnant. If her husband isn’t beating her I think she’s probably in better shape than a many pregnant women.
So sadly, in our society, it’s almost like smoking is relatively sane compared to some of the things people do to their bodies & their unborn.
I just wonder… Would you post a photo of someone eating fast food and complaining about something in their environment that was bad?
This is one of my gripes lately. That it seems socially acceptable to point fingers at people smoking. But somehow not socially acceptable to point fingers at people eating fast food garbage.
Just because other people do *worse* things to their bodies doesn’t make smoking acceptable. It may be relatively much less harmful, but I’ll still object vigorously to it, especially when it’s a pregnant woman who’s doing it.
It’s more socially acceptable to point out smoking, sure, but it’s a much tougher line to draw with fast food. Too much of it is bad obviously, but there are communities (too many) where the staple is fast food and food from convenience stores. There aren’t grocery stores.
Did I say it was good? No.
I guess I’m just jaded. I can’t get upset anymore.
Not when there’s so much bad.
Where are there no grocery stores and only fast food?
And why does that make fast food okay?
Clearly if there are any communities (and I doubt it) where only fast food is available, that should be even more a cause for criticism!!!
And I don’t know, I bet smoking a cigar once a week is less bad than eating fast food daily. ;)
Actually, the evidence connecting smoking and poor health for the fetus is incredibly weak–if not, non-existent.
It’s one of those disinformation campaigns public health researchers leak out to our ignorant and believing media.
(Another one of those campaigns include scaring heterosexual men who have vaginal intercourse with women without a condom that they are at high risk for HIV. There have been no credible reports in the United States of a heterosexual man contracting HIV from a woman by having vaginal intercourse. Anal intercourse is different. And Africa is a much different, more complicated situation to go into here.)
Moreover, smoking has not been shown to cause low birth weight for babies. It is thought to be possibly associated with low birth weight, but pre-natal care advocates and most family health professionals are hard-pressed when you ask them why so many babies are born low birth weight (or early in their term) among women who don’t smoke, drink, or do drugs.
But public health experts don’t want to admit not knowing.
Besides it makes everyone feel better to blame the bad mother for hurting her child and not our society, which believes healthcare is a commodity and not a right.
that is a classic shot, and I agree – the humore turns to sadness quickly.