Did your Mom SMOKE during pregnancy?

I used to work with a nurse who wasn’t too much younger than my own mom. She told a stories about how her OB smoked in his office DURING her prenatal visits when she had her kids (early 80’s). The visual she described of him kicked back on his stool in the corner writing with one hand and smoking with the other was mind boggling

I was pregnant with my first in 1996 and it was routine enough for the protocol to change.  I can remember the doctors and nurses being sort of excited to have me as a patient, as there were new guidelines in place.  Funny, because I had a high risk OB before the GD--you wouldn't think I was that unusual.  Two years later, the fasting BS goal had been lowered by 10 pts.  I still had a 9lb 2oz baby (born on his due date) and an 8lb, 3oz baby (she was 3 weeks early.)

My mom never smoked. My dad, however, smoked in the house and in the cars.

My coworker smoked through all three of her pregnancies from 2005-2013. I can't imagine the thought process that makes it ok in this era where we all know how bad it is.

Interesting thread

My mom definitely smoked with us kids (3 mid to late 70's babies.) My dad smoked, all their friends smoked. I remember as a kid being in the nasty rolling cigarette box (car) with them. It was horrible! My grandparents, Aunts and Uncles all smoked too. It was everywhere. All three of us kids were normal pregnancies/weights.

Most of the adults in my childhood stopped smoking by the mid 90's. Mom and dad continued their 2-3 pack a day (EACH!) habit much much longer. I remember when my dad threw a fit that restaurants were starting to go non smoking. He even gave up some of his favorite restaurants due to it.


I've never smoked- anything at all. And have always gone out of my way to avoid it when visiting home (a side perk of living states away.) I never considered how we must have smelled as kids until my daughter came home from school one day angry that she was assigned to mentor a younger kid who "smelled disgusting, like cigarettes!" OMG I was that kid I reminded my daughter that for alot of years, I probably smelled like that, and the only reason she doesn't is because her dad and I don't smoke.

For years, my mom would send birthday cards etc and they smelled soooo bad. I'd dread when she'd send small gifts. Literally discolored and reeking. The wallpaper in their house is discolored and sticky, they don't even notice it.

The positive?? They both quit smoking about 15 years ago! I'm soooooo proud of them- both! Dad was in the hospital for some cardiac issues and they wouldn't let him smoke. He raised holy hell. Finally, once he was back home, he declared he "quit smoking." He really did!! He grouses that "if they'd told him he'd gain weight he'd have never quit.." it's laughable. He's gained weight due to the fast food habit, my mom's horrible cooking and no exercise. Hahahah!!

Mom quit cold turkey shortly thereafter.

Going home to visit still is hard though because my sister is a smoker, as is my brother, and most of their friends. Minutes in her house with someone smoking a room away results in red watery eyes and nausea with a sniff of my hair when I leave. I don't understand smoking.

Neither of my parents ever smoked, but they were definitely the outliers. I'm 45 and my brother is 49 and our mom said the majority of people they knew before we were born and when we were babies were smokers, including during pregnancy. She remembers people starting to quit in the late '70s/early '80s and by the mid '80s a much smaller portion of the people she knew were smokers. 

my mum did smoke but quit when she was pregnant with me (I'm her oldest) because it didn't agree with her during pregnancy. My dad also smoked - he quit when I was 5 and my sis was a toddler - we had moved back to the UK from Germany and cigarette prices were much higher and his pay was lower (no overseas pay) and we really couldn't afford cigarettes AND groceries. We moved back overseas less than a year later with the increased pay and lower cigarette prices and my mum worried he would take it back up but he didn't - he had smoked for 30+yrs when he quit.

My neighbor smoked clean through both her pregnancies like a chimney. This was just the past 2-3 years.

Yes, 2 packs a day. My sister and I weighed just over 6 pounds, not twins. My brother was 6 weeks premature and had lots of issues, but she also got sick with I think with German measles when she was pregnant with him. Is that a thing? It sounds right. I never understood until I move out of the house why everyone at school always thought I was a smoker and refused to believe me when I said I had never tried it. When all the 2nd hand smoke information started coming out she refused to believe it at first and I can understand that. She has a lot of guilt. The thing is, she was hooked when she was very young, 11, before all the health information came out about it. Hard position to be in for sure.

No, my mother never smoked. She was a nurse until she married. When she met my father who was a smoker, she knew that she would have to spend her later years nursing him, but she chose that anyway. She was right. He died of emphysema and cancer at age 65.

I grew up in smoky rooms and smoky cars. I had childhood asthma and regular chest infections until I left home, and have had only one chest infection and no asthma in the subsequent 30 years.

Yes, there was a lot more public smoking in those days. Now if I smell smoke down-wind from a mile away I automatically think "yuck". When I have to smell smokers' breath, clothes and hair at work, it's nasty.

My mom never smoked, neither have my sister or I. My did did for a when we were younger but never in the house or around us.

My MIL and FIL smoked like chimneys. She would have smoked through all 3 pregnancies, 2 premmies. Then they both smoked around the children their whole lives, there were ashtrays in the kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, vehicles. Then at the age of 60 FIL decided it was costing to much and he quit cold turkey. MIL never did quit, she has passed away now. Only one of their kids smoke, SIL and she smoked through her pregnancies and her kids are only 8 & 4.

I was born 1970, my sister 1972. Both my parents smoked. They still do. Which is why I never go to their house.

I have cough variant asthma. And I too would bet I die from COPD for living 18 years in a home that was yellow sticky on every wall, ceiling and counter.

No, neither of my parents ever smoked. I was born in the mid-80s. Both of my parents are in their 60s and in excellent health.

Their parents, however, all smoked. My dad's mom smoked while pregnant and I'm sure my mom's mom did, too. My grandfather smoked a pipe until the day he died. My other grandfather quit smoking at some point. None of my grandparents died as a direct result of smoking (lung cancer, for example) but I'm sure smoking played a part. Two died of heart related illnesses, one from a stroke, and one from complications of dimension.

We went to California on vacation around 2000 and it was so nice to go to  a restaurant and not have to say, "non-smoking."

When the law went into effect here that there was no smoking at all in restaurants, the "restaurant people" complained that they would lose a lot of business if people could not smoke inside but it turned out to be the opposite. 

My mother never smoked and her mother never did either.

My father smoked a pipe up until I got pregnant with my first child and he quit abruptly.

I really have never been around a lot of smoking. Never in a home I lived in. And I have never smoked myself.