Common sense tells you that you are taking enough precautions if the baby is not breathing in any wisps of secondhand smoke. The baby can't possibly suffer any adverse health effects if they are not actually breathing in any potentially dangerous chemicals.

You STILL haven't been de-programmed.

Or is this some subtle sarcasm that I didn't pick up on?

My eldest child Erin was still-born on 24th of October 1990, and my wife had stopped the occasional Benson & Hedges Sterling Ultra-Lights as soon as the DIY bathroom litmus test came up red.

I woke up at sunrise the morning of the 23rd to find her not sleeping beside me, and in my surprise, grabbed a set of trackie daks and raced out to see her there in the back yard, stretching the arms, shoulders and most importantly, the womb that her newborn daughter was trapped for upcoming parole in 90 days or so, and I grabbed a bbq stool as I ran to the clothesline.

Unfortunately for Erin, the doc had an important golf tournament at Joondalup that morning, although we waited at the hospital all day until they told me to leave and go home if I'd leave my number. I got the knock on the door from the sympathetic uniformed grave-yard shift police constables at around 2:30am the next morning, and enjoyed a couple of minutes under matron's careful eyes to hold my frozen daughter's corpse in my arms and say farewell for the next 9 years. She came to me one night in 1999, but she's been busy since then.

Hanging the laundry (my job) on the line at dawn at the beginning of the third trimester is dangerous for child of the non-smoking mother-to-be, among other hearts.

My mother smoked around me all the time, and I turned out just fine. (Granted, I'm a smoker now... but you get the picture.) She didn't smoke in the house, but she smoked in the car. It was never a big deal. But now all of a sudden I'm hearing that I'm supposed to do everything short of taking a shower and washing my hair after every cigarette because I have a baby? Isn't it enough that I don't smoke around him?

I have several friends that DO smoke around their children in the house and car. I will probably never do that, mainly because I'll be promptly burned at the stake if I do so. Do you have children? What are your smoking habits around them? Do you actually change your clothes before you hold your little ones? Am I going about this horribly wrong?

Congratulations! You are well on your way to being successfully and totally indoctrinated by anti-tobacco's propaganda and emotional blackmail.

I totally sympathize, because I feel myself starting to panic if my 92-year-old mother comes anywhere near me while I am smoking. If she comes out on the porch while I'm smoking, I immediately tell her to go back inside. If we're both outside, I keep stepping back and she has to chase me around the yard to finish the conversation. This woman has survived all kinds of adversity for 92 years, but I'm terrified she will catch a wisp of my smoke and keel over dead on the spot.

I think it is the same with germs. When we were kids, we got into every darn thing, and most have been healthy as ever. The kids these days seem to be protected against everythin under the sun, which to me is NOT doing them any good as it reduces the bodies normal way of building up antibodies.

Anyway, I am just getting SO pissed off about this anti-smoking movement. If I have a cigarette on my front porch with my baby in his stroller a few feet away, cars passing by will actually SLOW DOWN so they can get a good look at me and pass adequate judgement. When I was pregnant, and I smoked even after I started to show, the looks I got from people were incredible.

Isn't it weird how strangers suddenly become interested in you in that situation? I've heard all kinds of vitriol aimed at pregnant women and I can't fathom why anyone thinks it's their business. There's something outrageous about strangers thinking they need to step in and protect a baby that belongs to you, not them.

Common sense tells you that you are taking enough precautions if the baby is not breathing in any wisps of secondhand smoke. The baby can't possibly suffer any adverse health effects if they are not actually breathing in any potentially dangerous chemicals.

That said, it's pretty much normal for smokers to suffer from continued fear, worry and shame, even when the people around them can't possibly be suffering damage from their cigarette smoke. The whole point of the antismoking movement has been to inflict as much psychological damage on smokers as possible, in the hopes that you will quit to avoid further mental torture.

I totally sympathize, because I feel myself starting to panic if my 92-year-old mother comes anywhere near me while I am smoking. If she comes out on the porch while I'm smoking, I immediately tell her to go back inside. If we're both outside, I keep stepping back and she has to chase me around the yard to finish the conversation. This woman has survived all kinds of adversity for 92 years, but I'm terrified she will catch a wisp of my smoke and keel over dead on the spot.

I'm taking Child Growth and Development this semester, and smoking during pregnancy is an issue that is brought up in the class almost every day. I'm trying to keep my mouth shut, but sometimes it's difficult. I haven't revealed that I was one of those women, because the shit that I would receive from the rest of the class would be horrendous.

One of my classmates the other day told us all about her pregnant neighbor who smokes. She was wondering if she should say something. The professor proceeded to tell her all about the harmful effects of smoking, and said that she SHOULD talk to her. I spoke up then, saying that the poor woman didn't need anyone to be her mother, that she doesn't live under a rock so she already is well aware of what this society thinks she should and shouldn't do, and that if she went up to an 8- or 9-month pregnant woman and started lecturing her about smoking that she would get a lashing like she wouldn't believe. And frankly, I told her, it's not her business. Stay out of it.

Oh, I got some dirty looks that day, believe me.