Mums-to-be in smoking rates shock (From The Bolton News)

Thats because Bolton is full of selfish tramps.

How shocking that given the risks, these women are still continuing to smoke during a time when their bodies are playing host to a new life. It is selfish in the extreme. It is selfish to have sex in the first place in such a nonchalant fashion and without any apparent regard of the consequences. Selfish to allow oneself to become pregnant as if it were an ‘occupational hazard’. And of course selfish to continue to suck down poisonous smoke and fumes into ones body and contaminate the developing lungs of the defenceless baby inside you. I know it is difficult to give up smoking but there is help available. If these women decide to take the risk of becoming pregnant then they should also accept the risk that they may have to give up smoking too. It should be a criminal offence to smoke during pregnancy and they should be named and shamed. There are laws in this country about smoking in public places. Those laws are made to protect all of us who don’t smoke from having to inhale the second hand smoke of those who do. Where are the laws protecting unborn babies from unwanted smoke?

Expect little else in Moses Gate and Breightmet - why is it such a shock?

In more rational times, before the anti-tobacco hysteria began in earnest, women who smoked continued to smoke and enjoy other normal pleasures of life without guilt during their pregnancies. Many even smoked during labor to help them relax and take the edge off their pain. If their doctors mentioned smoking at all, it would be to advise them to perhaps cut down if they were heavy smokers, something which most did intuitively because they didn’t “feel” like smoking as much.
But pity the poor Bolton smoker today who becomes pregnant, because she will be told that if she continues to smoke at all (or have any alcohol or caffeine) during her pregnancy, she is putting her developing fetus at high risk of death or disability.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Though there is considerable evidence showing that on average the babies of women who smoke during pregnancy weigh on average a few ounces less than babies of women who do not smoke and that the rate of low birthweight babies is somewhat higher for smokers, there is no credible evidence for the hyperbolic claims that the babies of smokers have a higher mobidity and mortality rate. Quite the contrary, the babies of women who smoke during pregnancy have a better survival rate ounce for ounce, a somewhat lower rate of congenital defects, a lower rate of Down’s syndrome, a lower rate of infant respiratory distress syndrome and a somewhat lower rate of childhood cancer than do the babies of non-smokers.

Dr. Richard L. Naeye, a leading obstetrical researcher who studied more than 58,000 pregnancies, states unequivocally:

“We recently found no significant association between maternal smoking and either stillbirths or neonatal deaths when information about the underlying disorders, obtained from placental examinations, was incorporated into the analyses. Similar analyses found no correlation between maternal smoking and preterm birth. The most frequent initiating causes of preterm birth, stillbirth, and neonatal death are acute chorioamnionitis, disorders that produce chronic low blood flow from the uterus to the placenta, and major congenital malformations. There is no credible evidence that cigarette smoking has a role in the genesis of any of these disorders.”

Cut and paste is such a marvellous invention! The comment from Parmenion has been taken directly from a website which supposedly promotes 'human rights'. People have the right to chose, and if people chose to stop smoking then they should be able to get some free help that's all. Nothing here says anti smoking! Don't force your 'human rights' views on everyone, no-one can force anyone to stop smoking but giving links to evidence which is flawed is just an invitation to people for continue smoking and just promoting tobacco industry greed. They make enough money not to care either way.

It appears ASH is having a hissy fit over Parmenion's well written and informative comment! Perhaps Cameron is about to Abolish ASH!