Smoking and Pregnancy: The Politics of Fetal Protection

Abstract

The 1966 edition of medical textbook states that women can safely smoke half a pack of cigarettes a day. Yet today, women who smoke during pregnancy are among most villified figures in public health campaigns. Laury Oaks argues this shift is not due solely to medical findings indicating that cigarette smoking may harm foetus. Also responsible are a variety of social factors that converged more than a decade ago to construct demonized category of pregnant smoker. This book charts emergence of smoking during pregnancy as a public health concern and social problem. Oaks looks at emphasis public health educators place on individual responsibility, current legal and social assertion of foetal personhood, and advent of antismoking campaigns. She explores how public health educators discuss the problem with one another, how they communicate with smokers, and how these women themselves understand risk of foetal harm. Finally, Oaks discusses various meanings of objective statistics on effects of smoking on foetus, exploring significance of cultural context in assessing relative importance of those numbers. She argues that rather than bombarding women with statistics, health educators should consider daily lives of these women and their socioeconomic status to understand why some women choose to smoke during pregnancy. Without downplaying seriousness of health risks that smoking poses to women and their babies, book supports new efforts that challenge moral policing of smokers.