Should women, who smoke, or do drugs while pregnant, receive child abuse charges?

I think our prisons are crowded enough as it is, thanks.

lol

No, but their kids should be taken away from them.

It doesn’t even take that much effort to keep a healthy pregnancy. If you obviously don’t care for your child’s life, well, someone else does.

Tell that to the thousands of kids in the foster system.

In the county I work in, their kids are taken away if they have a positive result.

I had an almost 48 hour delivery and the doctor sent the placenta to the lab. He didn’t say it but I knew it was for testing.

I agree with removing children when the mom has a positive result. The mom is offered rehab and she can work to get the baby back.

Don’t wait until the baby is born to offer help, ffs. These mothers should be helped as soon as they are identified. I mean helped, not punished, not vilified, not threatened.

I am with @Seek on this. And with women offered no pre-natal care except “don’t abort”, better be prepared to help the child for a long time.

Only if men are charged criminally for doing any or all of these seven things that are known to damage sperm. How does it feel to have the shoe on the other foot?

Only if you extend this to every parent who smokes when children are living in their home.
Smoking does not stop being harmful after birth.

Babies who are born to barbiturate addicts go through horrible withdrawal, but suffer fewer long term effects than women who drink alcohol (which IS legal). A baby born with fetal alcohol syndrome will NEVER have a normal life. Now there are other horrible drugs that make babies blind and deaf and all sorts of horrible things. As horrible as it sounds, a mother on heroin can be put in a program for recovery and given methadone and the baby will be born and go through withdrawl, but can go on and not suffer long term effects of it’s mother’s addiction. If she is an alcoholic, chances are she won’t be caught, because alcohol is legal, and the baby will suffer the effects its entire life. Babies have been born with fetal alcohol syndrome for centuries. Nobody kicks up a fuss.

In the county I work in, babies born with FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) can be removed from their mothers, too.

@jca but it’s too little, too late.

The children should be able to sue the parents for care for life.

@cazzie: They are limited, legally, with what they can do while the mom is pregnant – mainly because she may be “flying under the radar.”

Drugs/alcohol yes, if the child is born addicted but smoking a couple cigarettes is overkill. I smoked 2–3 half cigarettes a day when I was pregnant and my daughter was just fine, weighed over 8 lbs. I never smoked around her as an infant or as a child. I went outside for the few a day I indulged in.

Being a child born in the late 50’s, mothers smoked and drank during their pregnancies and while we now know better, let me assure you at almost 60 that I don’t know of any of my same age peers that have issues because their mothers smoked a few cigarettes and had a few cocktails. Lets not throw the basically healthy baby out with a little benign bathwater.

@RedDeerGuy1 Arguably, I got a less than perfect kid. If someone wants to try to take him away (which they seem to be trying to do but only since I left his father and because I am completely alone here and a foreigner) and blame me for our problems, they’ve got a fucking fight on their hands. I have been fighting this fucking system for over 4 years now and I’m about ready to do something really desperate. None of this is my fault, but they keep coming at me.

My mom smoked. I weighed 5 pounds. I grew up nice and big, though. My dad smoked in the house. It didn’t affect me.

I think women who cannot give up those for the kids must first think about having the kids. Its not only about the child’s health but it also says how much they are willing to sacrifice for someone else wellbeing, it is an act of love. Unless a women is not in her state of mind (as in women with depression or so, they have to be sent for counseling and pure support from friends and family to get of those)

When I was pregnant, few strange men when waiting at a restaurant were smoking when they saw me pregnant and sitting in the next table, put away the cigarette for the entire time. I really appreciate those kind of people.

@Goldpepper, not every child is planned.

So?

I did not say smoking definitely causes anything bad, it’s just precaution.

“I think women who cannot give up those for the kids must first think about having the kids”

Many people don’t think about it at all. It “just happens.”

I don’t understand why @marinelife doesn’t have ALL the GA’s for her answer.

If I see someone faint I would go and help.

As in I meant if smoking/drugs means harm to someones life then they can show some respect to it by avoiding it

Things don’t have to be planned to show love or to be respectful for someone else’s life.

I know this isn’t making sense I kinda don’t know how to put it.

That doesn’t make sense @Goldpepper.

Yes, I like @marinelife perspective as well. What’s good for the gander is good for the goose. haha

@Goldpepper As sad as it is some people have addiction issues and while potentially detrimental to a fetus this doesn’t mean they are bad people, just people that need help.

@ Coloma agree, but people with addiction atleast try don’t they

@Goldpepper If smeone is truly an addict or alcoholic most of the time their trying will fail without serious intervention. The very nature of addiction is loss of control. You are not controlling the substance, it is controlling you. Less serious dependency may be overcome on ones own but for serious dependencies that would be rare.

And in the meantime they discover they’re pregnant…..

Doesn’t that also mean not in their state of mind? (Well I said depression because I have seen people with it than an addict)

I sometimes don’t know how to say things.

Like I am unable to express what’s in my mind exactly as it is

It’s OK.

@marinelife ,of course has a valid point. Only, by that logic women would also need to be held to those standards, i.e. they would also have to abstain from things that damage eggs, and DNA. So, no, the shoe is just on both feet.

But the focus of the question is about a woman who knows that she is pregnant, but does drugs anyway…

Right. You can’t ignore the obvious, that a man drinking or doing drugs when his girlfriend is pregnant will not hurt the baby.

There are smoking bans in most indoor places in my city. You aren’t allowed to smoke with kids in the car either. Because of the obvious 2nd hand smoke problems.

It seemed odd to me that someone hadn’t tried to make it illegal for pregnant women.

So, what about turning the tables?
What can a pregnant woman do, who makes all the right choices for her baby’s health, then learns her city’s water is bad, and has been for long time?

That’s nothing she can help or control. Once she finds out she can take what ever steps she needs to.
If babies start being born with birth defects because of it, then the city gets sued.

No. It’s not like they can’t do it secretly prior to delivering the baby anyway. If mothers want, they could even kill the babies on their own and claim that they fell from the stairs accidentally. My body my rules.

I think it would be hard to enforce making smoking illegal for pregnant women. First, not all pregnant women look pregnant. Secondly, there are women that look pregnant and are not. Third, the pregnant woman would and could smoke in secret (as she could do drugs in secret, as well). I am not sure if nicotine would show up in the placenta and if so, for how long would it remain.

^Well. I wasn’t attempting to delve into how to enforce it. I was just curious what our pond thought about the issue.

Sure, but it’s fine if they go they go ahead kill the baby.

@MollyMcGuire It’s not legal to kill a baby. It is legal to have an abortion of a fetus. If a woman is such a wreck, she’s not going to be thinking rationally enough to get medical attention before she’s 19 weeks along. More’s the pity.

I think men who impregnate woman who abuse drugs and alcohol should be brought up on child abuse charges.

^ What the…why? The kid is not exactly abused by being created….

They are being abused by being created with degenerate sperm caused by drug and alcohol use.

@Sneki95 because they are negligent. They know the woman uses drugs and drinks to excess, but get her pregnant anyway. He should be held responsible for it, just as much as the woman.

@ragingloli I thought the women in case are the drugged ones, not the men.
@Dutchess_III Oh, well, that makes sense, kinda.

I’d wager that about 9/10ths of the population was created after using alcohol. lol

Really? Not this girl. Everything was carefully planned, weeks in advance, including how NOT to get pregnant. I never had sex with “some guy” just because I’d been drinking.

My kid was absolutely conceived under the influence of alcohol.

My kid was conceived under the influence of not just fine French wine, but also, under the influence of the south of France. My mother had just died and I wanted a baby sooooooo much.

But they were both planned, right? Speaking of you and @Seek. Or at least hoped for. You two weren’t random druggies having sex for drugs or whatever.

@Dutchess_III legally married and everything. :/

Conception, under the influence, is different than knowing that you’re pregnant, and abusing drugs….

So is wanting (or even needing?) an abortion and not having access to it. Or wanting medical and social help and not having access to it. I don’t think anyone wants to be so addicted that they have no control, do you? I saw my mother die of lung cancer and while she was going though chemo, she couldn’t stop smoking no matter how badly she wanted to. She didn’t want to smoke and she cried about it. That’s what addiction looks like. You are dying, but you have no control.

^Yes. I know… My uncle killed himself when he was 33 because he couldn’t stop robbing his own mother, to support his habit. He really loved his Mom. He had just gotten married, to a nice girl, and had a 1 year old baby boy. My grandmother, and his siblings never got over it. I’ll never forget it…

As I think about it, I wonder if there is anyone, in the civilized world, that hasn’t been affected by some form of addiction.

I didn’t ask this question to demonize women, or addicts.

@MrGrimm888 I know you didn’t. But you can see from the discussion, some people do. Even the anti-choice league showed up. Remember the rant about the guy hating pregnant women? That was some scary stuff.
If pre-natal care was an automatic given, like it is in most civilised countries, women wanting to either exercise their choice or get help for their addiction could be treated. Pregnancy and addiction are both medical conditions.

(I had no one to give my son’s baby stuff to, so a friend who was working with addicted mothers came over and we packed up a bunch of stuff and I sent it to Bergen with her. The women have a clinic and they are either checked into for 24 hour care or, depending on their circumstances, are a day-patient. The work with the mothers continue past the birth of their baby, so the clinic always appreciates clothes and toys for newborns.)

So. The origin of this question was a anti-smoking commercial. In the commercial, a woman who allegedly smoked while pregnant, is visiting her premature baby in the PICU. It’s a guilt, or shock value commercial.

I actually worked at a huge local children’s hospital for a while. I wasn’t a nurse,like when I worked with animals. I was in supply. So , I had to visit a lot of different places, where children were being treated, for everything from premature birth, to cancer. I saw many children there. I know that it was a children’s hospital, but it was shocking to see how many premature babies there were. I have read,or been told, that smoking during pregnancy can result in all kinds of birth defects, and even affect the child later in life, with conditions such as asthma.

The commercial just remindedme of all those poor children.
I personally wouldn’t support a government monitoring of pregnant women. Or any law such as the hypothetical one in the original question. But I hadn’t spoken to a female about the subject. As some of you know, I try to see things from multiple perspectives. So, I figured that if I asked Fluther, I would hear from some women.
Because it’s clearly easy, to not have a woman’s perspective, as a man.

I added drug abuse A. Because cigarettes/nicotine are a drug to me. B. Because I thought crack, meth etc were worse.

I also know a couple that has had 4 kids, all while the mother was on various drugs. All 4 kids have been taken from them at birth. It’s not legal for the couple to have custody of their own kids. But it is legal for them to have as many kids as they can,while abusing drugs. They may well have 4 more screwed up children together, which will be taken by the state as well.

I don’t want a good Mom to go to jail, or have her kid taken from her, because of a few cigarettes, or glasses of wine. I just wish there was some way to stop people like the couple I mentioned, from popping out kid,after kid, that will have numerous health problems, and ultimately, be supported by tax money.

It’s definitely a sticky subject. And I couldn’t think of any realistic solution. Another reason why I asked the question.

It seems that access to affordable/subsidized health care, may be the best option presented. Not penalizing the mother.

Please keep in mind, this was only a subject that was brought up for debate. I’m not starting a grass roots movement here.

Thanks to all for your contributions.

My sister works in a hospital in Arizona. She said she won’t work on the paediatrics ward because she cries too much when she sees the meth babies. They are so horribly deformed, she said. I can’t find anything to back up her claims that meth babies are horribly deformed and born blind and deaf, but it’s what she believes.

@MrGrimm888 – While it is terribly sad that children are born to people with addictions, any “way to stop people like” them from having kids would infringe on what is probably the single most intrinsic right of any human.

I would not support, in any way, any law that attempted to legislate who was and was not allowed to bear a child.

However, I have said on MANY occasions, that I would 100% support and encourage a taxpayer-funded initiative to provide free sterilisation services and counselling to any person, regardless of income, who felt they could not, should not, or did not want to have children.

@cazzie – As I know you know, many babies are born deformed and blind and deaf regardless of parental drug use. Nature is a cruel mother. And you’re naturally more likely to see deformed babies in a peds unit than literally anywhere, as that’s where they tend to congregate.

My point is, my sister is not logical, like most people faced with a topic that draws an emotional response. She can call me cold, but my facts and Data keep me warm at night.

Word.

I had a crack baby in my daycare for a while. He was in foster care, and his foster mother brought him, and his foster-sister (not his real sister) to me so she could have days off, which I thought was odd. The state was paying her to care for them, but I was doing the work! Anyway, he was the most sweet tempered baby on earth. My lord. You just look at him and he’d grin. Broke my heart when the bio mother got him back. He was stiff. All the older kids loved to hold the babies, but they didn’t like holding Tate because, as my daughter, who was 4 at the time, said, “He’s hard to hold because he’s so steeiff!” Since he was only 6 months old at the time, it was hard to see if there were other issues, like learning disabilities, too.
Heart breaking.

I don’t think babies should be in daycare before their 1st birthday. Holy shit. Remember, I work in a long established, well researched child care system.

Well, I don’t know that it matters, and also most parents don’t have any option but to go back to work within weeks, or lose their jobs.

I don’t know of many women who had the luxury of staying out of work for the baby’s first year… They always seem to be back in a couple months,at most…

fuck… so infant early daycare could be a more horrific post birth trauma than anything… Oh.. gosh…. Look at the effects of not appreciating the need for the continued bond with the infant… Imagine that…...

@cazzie in America most women have no choice. They get about 6 weeks of paid maternity leave, then they have to go back to work. I did have a choice, so I chose to be a stay at home mom, so that’s what I did.
IMO daycare doesn’t hurt the kids at all, as long as they have a good relationship with their parents. Well, assuming their provider is loving and caring as well. It is possible for an infant to bond with more than one person.

I would bet that most women don’t get a paid maternity leave. I know some do, but I doubt that most get a penny.

I would definitely prefer that not only the mother, but also the father would have time to get the first few months out of the way. I would be upset if I couldn’t help the mother of my child with baby care. Especially after she just went through being pregnant, and birth.

I guess though, back in the day, and indeed in less developed places, that the mother works up to birth, and almost immediately after. Women are amazing creatures. I was out of commission for 2 weeks after my wisdom teeth were removed…

I took off 7 months when my daughter was born. 2 months with full pay, 3 months on half pay, and two months with no pay (those two months I had to pay for medical insurance out of my pocket, as the rule where I work is when you are off the payroll you have to pay for medical insurance yourself). Medical insurance was 1500 a month at the time, for the family plan. Fortunately I could afford going with the half pay and the no pay.

When I went back to work, when daughter was 7 months old, I had a wonderful babysitter who was so great, so helpful, such a nice person. I was really lucky. I had no choice but return to work but I was lucky to have this lady.

I live in a country that has to give women 1 year off work. Their employers aren’t on the hook to provide the pay. It’s part of the social security system here. Like our health care and education to university level and subsidised child care centers. People are hired for the year they are away, so there isn’t any problems with co workers.

^Must be nice…

@MrGrimm888 When Norway struck oil in their offshore grounds, the first person they consulted wasn’t a banker. It was a philosopher. It really fucked off the American Corporations that came over here, rubbing their hands together, hoping to take advantage of a backward little country, like they’ve been doing in Nigeria and Indonesia, but Norway said, thanks but no thanks, and created the now legendary StatOil. The US has enough resources to do the same, but they’d rather protect the rights of the very few to get ridiculously rich.

^Oh, yeah. I’m ,sadly, quite aware of American tactics. To be fair, it’s really just business men. The uber wealthy have no bounds for their greed. They are constantly trying to find ways to step on others, to get further up.

So @cazzie, do you understand that no matter how much American woman would like to stay home with their new babies for a year, they can’t? So, if you were talking to one of those women on this thread would you stand by your comment ”...so infant early daycare could be a more horrific post birth trauma than anything… Oh.. gosh…. Look at the effects of not appreciating the need for the continued bond with the infant…”

My sister and I used to debate this. She was an up and coming management star at Boeing. She couldn’t imagine stooping so low as to give that up to become a mere mom.
My husband and I, on the other hand, were willing (and able) to take the income hit by me not working.
Part of her was torn with being disgusted with me, part of her was torn with guilt.
I still say that if the infant is in a loving care situation and is being cared for by a person who wants to care for them, it’s better than being home with a mother who may feel frustration at not working, and really wishing she could go back to work instead of changing diapers. Her babies were fine, and happy, in my daycare (Which is where she brought them.)

@Dutchess_III Yes… I stand by my comments. What is currently happening in the US is NOT healthy. There is, of course, situations where babies can be looked after well, but it is not, in any way, standard.

I was lucky to be home with my daughter when she was a baby and young child. I think if you have a trusted family member to watch your child that is optimum but I too am wary of daycare homes and centers. I knew a women years ago that did home daycare and she just warehoused those babies and toddlers. They were always “napping.” Read: Unless she was feeding them or changing them or had them sitting out in the front room just about the time the parents arrived, looking like they enjoyed an interactive day, they were off in a bedroom in a crib, playpen or on the bed just staring at the walls until they finally feel asleep from sheer boredom. I wasn’t friends with her for long.

I was an interactive day care provider in my home. I know of a couple of others. But I agree, the home-daycare system needs to be over hauled some how.

I was in a private citizen/uncertified daycare at a very early age. I never even thought about others not having gone through the same. My Mom worked a lot, but I don’t remember wanting for love, or attention. If she wasn’t working, she had me with here….

It does suck though. I wish it were different for most Americans.

Also, I think it would be harder on a kid to wait a year and then put him or her in care. At a year they aren’t old enough to understand any explanation. I would think that would be more “traumatic” than having been in the same person’s care from the beginning.

@Dutchess_III It’s difficult to be entirely sympathetic when Americans repeatedly elect governments that refuse to catch up with the 21st century. To some extent, the current state of affairs is a matter of choice.

You can still be sympathetic to the citizens, the majority of whom did NOT vote for the current administration.
You can be sympathetic to the citizens who themselves are doing what they can to change the government.
You can always be sympathetic to the children.

^Yeah. We don’t pull the trigger yo…

@Dutchess_III Yes, that’s why I used the word “entirely”.

No