Collection: Fumes for Fetus
Smoking while pregnant can make women more likely to have a miscarriage, cause problems with the placenta, and even lead to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).1 However, data from the 2011 Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS) indicated that “approximately 10% of women reported smoking during the last 3 months of pregnancy,” so the targets of certain anti-smoking advertisements are pregnant women and new mothers.1 There is clearly a need to raise awareness of the damage women are doing to their unborn babies by smoking while pregnant, as well as after the baby is born.
To do so, many advertisements include images of a baby inside a woman smoking and pregnant women questioning their smoking habits to highlight the fact that their decision to smoke is affecting their innocent baby. In fact, the Australian government launched an anti-smoking campaign that included such pictures. The campaign included advertisements that supported women in their endeavors to quit smoking, instead of shaming them into doing so because "education and support are the best way forward for helping people give up.”2 That is why many of the advertisements contained the Quitline phone number and websites to help people quit. The messages that were most recalled from this campaign were that smoking while pregnant deprives babies of oxygen and that smoking while pregnant damages a woman's unborn baby. 3
The advertisements that illustrate how babies can get sick from secondhand smoke often refer to images of innocuous babies who have no say in their mother’s smoking habits. When exposed to toxins via secondhand smoke, they tend to get sick more often and experience more frequent asthma attacks than children not exposed to secondhand smoke.4 Some of the advertisements include statistics and facts about the number of tobacco-related fetal and infant deaths to highlight this fact.
References:
1. http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/tobaccousepregnancy/
2. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/government-anti-smoking-campaign-to-focus-on-pregnant-women/story-e6frg6n6-1226510033272
3. http://www.quitnow.gov.au/internet/quitnow/publishing.nsf/Content/ntc-pregeval-execsumm
4. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General: Secondhand Smoke: What It Means To You. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2006
