I am currently pregnant and have been trying, unsuccessfully, to quit smoking. I know many women (my mother included) who smoked while pregnant and had healthy babies. I get very sick of being thought of as a "bad mom." I say do the best you can, things should turn out fine if you do what you can.

Jen, Detroit, USA

To: Judy, Liverpool, England

"My advice to all pregnant women would be to get rid of anything that offers daily news, tv radio etc. You would be a lot better off."

Judy, I humbly beg to disagree! Knowledge is POWER! Millions of women, especially, are dying all over the world from cancer and other horrible diseases...because they do not have adequate INFORMATION to take care of themselves and to save their lives!

We cannot afford to hide our heads in the sand in this age in which CANCER is expected to strike one in three people in their lifetimes!

Garth Rex, Glendale Heights, USA

For what it is worth, smoking in the USA is fast disappearing because of the widely publicised health hazzards, including lethal lung, mouth and throat cancers. This is despite the efforts of BIG Tobacco...the wealthy major tobacco companies.

The incidence of cancer appears to be reaching epidemic proportions in the USA, with one in three people to suffer the disease.

Smoking during pregnancy is also linked to fetal death, birth defects and childhood illnesses.

Not everyone who smokes contracts or dies of lung cancer...and not every pregnant woman who smokes loses her baby....however fewer and fewer intelligent and well-informed people in the USA seem to want to
gamble with their lives and those of their unborn children.

I once knew a very beautiful woman who smoked constantly during her pregnancy...until she lost her baby during the ninth month. She told me that the doctor said that the baby died as a result of her smoking.

Be informed...be aware...be warned.

Garth Rex, Glendale Heights, USA

what are we allowed to do? I'm fed up with listening to contrasting views on my pregnancy and my health - and I am absolutely sick to death of being labelled a bad mother who will burn in hell because I like the odd fag and a glass or two of red wine.

Laura, Milan, Italy

Perhaps those who saw fit to erect the hateful and obscene billboard I saw recently in Trowbridge in Wiltshire "Smoking during pregancy is tantamount to Manslaughter" will now remove it.

Anna, Carcassonne, France

I smoked with both my children my oldest was born weighing
9lbs 12 oz he has never suffered any illeness to with me smoking and second child weighed 10lbs 10ozs and the same with him he nevered suffered any illeness to do with me smoking they are now grown up both fit and they do not smoke

emma, withernsea, england

How very interesting. I wonder how many more newspapers (not to mention the BBC) would have run this story if it's conclusion had been that smoking was more - not less - harmful than previously believed.

Chris, Brighton, England

I do not know the truth or otherwise of these claims, however what I do know is that there will be a hurried piece of 'research' brought ot by one of the anti smoking lobby groups funded by the big drug companies showing a total different result and it will be posted in the main stream media to great fanfare. Such is the power of the anti smoking movement. The truth means little to them. Demonising smoking and smokers is their life's work..
I am a life long never smoker

Robert Feal-Martinez, Swindon, England

since doctors turned around & declared Alcohol is ok in pregnancy I don't believe a word they say.
they switch opinions from one month to the next!
if taking a aspirin in pregnancy is frowned upon,
why would smoking or drinking for that matter, be all right?

suzyn, clacton on sea, essex UK

Much more damaging to the unborn child is the constant bombardment by the medical profession and Government of misleading information to the mother. My advice to all pregnant women would be to get rid of anything that offers daily news, tv radio etc. You would be a lot better off.

judy, Liverpool, England