Pregnant Smokers: Beware!!!

For my first official post on my Health and Nutrition blog, I decided to find an article that spoke to me personally. No, I'm not pregnant, but I am a smoker who hopes to have kids one day. While I've tried to quit this stinky habit several times, the urge to grab my cancer-sticks in times of extreme stress and not so extreme boredome always seems to prevail. However, I always told myself that when the time comes to bring my wee ones into the world, my tasty nicotine treats would have to go the way of the gun...or the trashcan, whichever works.

With that in mind, I always wondered about the mommies-to-be out there who couldn't seem to put down their lighters for the health of their baby. Looking at the side of my cigarette box right now, it says in rather large and very capitolized letters: "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, And Low Birth Weight." Don't these mothers feel a certain sense of responsibility for their unborn children? Then I read this stirring article from the Associated Press on msnbc:

Pregnant Smokers

I'm not going to summarize the article, as you can read it yourself, but I will take this time to question authority a bit, as I'm sometimes prone to do. AP is a popular guy, and I see his articles floating around a fair bit in my news-hunting fortays, but I must ask, where did you get your information from? No, I'm not knocking the notion that pregnant women shouldn't smoke by any means, but the article makes mention of the emotional dependency of women especially in less educated and poorer regions of the country, citing they are more likely to be victims of depression and possible chemical imbalance. "Poorer regions" stuck out to me as a nice way of saying "the South."

Sure, everyone and their brother smokes in the South, including pretty much anyone over the age of 12, but I think the more important issue here is being ignored: education. It's no secret that the educational system in our southern region is, to put it nicely, sub-par, but I see that as all the more reason to promote education than drug-therapy, as the article mentioned. True, it was one of many options mentioned, but in these "poorer regions" how are women supposed to afford psychological treatment when the price of a carton comes so much cheaper at the local 7-11? It seems to me that promoting education at a younger age could nip this problem in the bud instead of simply accepting the fact that yes, your child will be a smoker, and probably pregnant at an early age. I would be depressed, too.