Yesterday the weather seemed to get better in the evening, the sun came out and it was really a little bit warm, nearly like the summer weather that it should be in the end of July. Together with our friends Thomas and Iris we thus decided to go out for some ice-cream in our favourite ice-cream parlour. We parked the car and got out to walk down the road towards the ice-cream parlour. On the way there we passed a couple and the woman was highly pregnant. By the size of her belly you might guess that she was in the 8th month of pregnancy. She had a cigarette in the hand and was smoking.
I looked around and indicated to the others to see that there was a pregnant woman smoking. She must have noticed that we were talking about her, because she looked at us with a glare, took another deep drag and then threw down the cigarette to the floor practically in front of our feet, exhaling the smoke provokingly from her mouth.
We walked by but this image remained in our minds. Of course we started talking about this and I remembered that just some time ago we had seen a pregnant woman who was fully drunk. Another day we saw a young mother pushing a children’s push chair with a baby of maybe one year with one hand, cigarette in the other.
Why do you do this? Who gave you the right to do this to your unborn child? If you cannot leave your addiction, why do you get pregnant? Don’t you know the consequences that your child might have to face? It is one of the first and foremost rules in pregnancy. Your doctor will tell you right in beginning not to smoke and not to drink alcohol during pregnancy! It is medically proved that it causes severe harm to the fetus!
Thomas, who is working in a school for handicapped children, told that the mother of one of their students tells proudly that she smoked two packets of cigarettes on each day of her pregnancy. She had not been unaware of the possible effects, she knew it but did it nevertheless. Now she has a handicapped child. He also told that he has seen children in kindergartens whose parents have been smoking and drinking during pregnancy and they were very slow in their development. Alcohol and cigarettes are a no-go during pregnancy!
It makes me sad and I feel terrible about these mothers and parents. I know that I cannot do anything to help the unborn child or the young child. They know the truth, they are not uneducated and are unaware, they know it but poison their children nevertheless! If you went to them and asked them why they smoke and drink while pregnant, they would just ask you what right you have to talk to them. ‘It is my body and my child, what do you have to do with this? I will do what I want.’ I feel helpless. It is true, I cannot do anything, but it still hurts to see this. Why does it hurt me and make me angry? Am I unnecessarily over-sensitive? I cannot do anything else but pray for these unborn and newly-born children and express my feelings here in my diary.
Some time ago I wrote about parents buying alcohol for their teenage children. Why not buy alcohol and cigarettes for your children, if they get it anyway already while they are in your womb and through the mother’s milk when breastfeeding? Why would children not start smoking and drinking themselves?
Think about what you are doing there! It hurts my heart, why doesn’t it hurt yours?
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I like your words Swami … It hurts me too ….. if mothers drink or smoke …. during pregnancy …..
I fully understand you and have the same feeling … hurt and helpless and very angry! It happen in my own family. The woman from my elder brother used to smoke while sh was first time pregnant and no matter what we said to her she just smiled in our face and kept on smoking. Second time she got pregnant and had twins …. I saw her again smoking in front of her own Mother and Father in a room full of smoke dust… I grabbed her arms and took her out and asking her what she is doing to her Kids and if she do not care there are my Nephew and nice she is carrying in her womb so I do care . Later on I had to face a terrible discussion from her parents and just not enough her own Mother gave her a cigaret in a very provacet way and her father told her you can do what you want! My brother kept quite …
I just get the idea that they behavior is supposed to represent they independence! Nobody should tells me what I should do! I’m an adult and responsible for my own life! But in reality they are still in the midst of puberty (3rd chakra theme I guess) Real independence starts in the inner one, and in one thoughts…
It seems like these women who choose to disrespect their unborn babies’ lives probably didn’t have a very good reason for their pregnancy anyway. Maybe it was an accidental pregnancy or an unwanted situation. I would think that any parent bringing a child into the world with good intentions for the baby’s life would want to do everything possible to prepare the child for a healthy life…Hopefully such women can heal their own wounds before bringing a child into the world when they aren’t ready to provide a good life for the child.
If you decide to have a baby, you also have to decide at the same time to be responsible. If you don’t care about your child, who else will? As a mother you have to give all of your love to that baby and not to yourself or your drink or cigarette.