Smoking moms: What is wrong with you?

Here is the problem with vaping and I don’t need a health expert to tell me about it. It’s chemicals mixed together, heated up and then inhaled into the body.

You tell me if that sounds right or not, because to my logic, inhaling chemicals into the body just sounds a little unhealthy to me and could probably have major negative consequences.

But I find it annoying to discuss vaping because something so insignificant has become a public interest and people are grabbing the opportunity to be involved in the conversation without even really caring.

So I’m going to abandon the vape talk and go straight to the real issue with I think really deserve the attention - that is smoking actual cigarettes.

I don’t want to be a nag and if someone of sane mind and is an adult makes a decision for him or herself, I don’t want to be judgmental and all self-righteous.

It’s really just a ‘suka hati kau’ moment. It’s up to them. They can do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm anyone else and it really doesn’t mean they are bad people.

But when it starts hurting people around them, people who did not make the decision to have their health affected by smoking, that has all my hair in a ruffle.

And the worst is when mothers make the responsible adult decision of smoking and affecting their children, whether born or unborn.

I know many 'sophisticated' women say it's their choice to smoke. But then if they decide to have a baby, is it the baby's choice to have all that toxins entering his or her body while in the womb?

Smoking during pregnancy, lowers the amount of oxygen your baby gets, increases his or her heart rate, increases the chance of stillbirth and increases the risk of the baby developing defects.

And don't think that stopping right when you discover you're pregnant will make any difference. How many years do you think it takes for your body to clear its system from the toxins?

Three to five years at least, study says.

And I haven't mentioned mothers who smoke while breastfeeding. These are the worst kind because it has tremendous adverse affects on the baby.

It is a fact proven by research that the amount of nicotine transferred in breast milk is more than double compared to that transferred by the placenta.

Babies who are breastfed by mothers who smoke also have very altered sleep patterns. They have much shorter sleep times compared to normal babies and this will affect growth.

Smoking also decreases a woman’s ability to produce milk. This means that smoking mothers will have to wean their babies faster, taking away all the benefits of breastfeeding.

So what’s keeping these smoking mothers smoking and directly harming their innocent babies? I think there is just one simple explanation - pure stupidity.

Oh, and what about vaping? Who cares.