If you're pregnant - don't smoke. SIMPLE!

I'm so maddened with the news today that pregnant women who smoke are to be given financial incentives in the form of shopping vouchers to stop smoking!

It's not enough for the expectant mother to be given the information that smoking is the cause of around 5,000 miscarriages a year, as well as more than 100 still births and more than 100 infant deaths.

Oh no, because of their reluctance to stop there has been a trial of more than 600 women in Glasgow. It found that smokers who were paid up to £400 in shopping vouchers were more than twice as likely to quit! This is meant to be an alternative to the £87.5m it costs the NHS to treat the after affects of smoking during pregnancy in babies and mothers.

At 9 months pregnant with my first child maybe I'm more sensitive to this. The responsibility when carrying a child is massive and as a former smoker I'm fully aware of how addictive the fags can be. 

But my incentive to stop was trying to conceive.. that to me was so important as I wanted to be as healthy as possible. 

Then when it took longer than expected and being more complicated that we'd hope,  to fall pregnant - trying to keep my health at an optimum was such a priority. 

I'm just filled with disdain for women who smoke during pregnancy and have been guilty of throwing evil looks when I've seen them - because it exasperates me! I smoked from aged 15, it was such a part of me - but I couldn't have ever imagined smoking whilst pregnant.

There is JUST NO excuse. 

I'm currently binge watching Call the Midwife where everyone smokes and it's bizarre to think how it was so accepted in the 50's but NO more. Your willpower and your future child's well being should be the only incentive you need and I don't think i'm being naive here. 

What kind of message are we saying in society 'Hey pregnant lady who smokes, here's £400 shopping vouchers to help you quit' 

Not even once you've quit. 

What about all the women who don't smoke or have managed to quit, nah, you don't get the vouchers - which could really help prepare for you baby, because you are responsible adults it's just the bloody idiots who have the likes of Kerry Katona speaking out on their behalf. 

As I've already had a rant on my facebook about this a fellow pregnant friend has informed me that Kerry has said something along the lines of the 'stress' of quitting the fags would cause to the mum would harm the baby. 

Get that woman a gag!

Oh I wish I'd looked after me teeth!

Yesterday, I paid £112 for a filling... it was one I knew I needed to have but put it off after the last time I went. Then I got that letter through and had to book in. I hate the dentist, BUT I really like MY dentist. It's a lovely lady called Miss Hayward who I've seen running, sometimes she has Heart on her radio and we have nice little chats. She puts me at ease.

I used to visit a dentist who's stomach rumbled SO loudly, he was a pretty skinny, quietly spoken man and for some reason he made me nervous. I guess I was concerned he might make a mistake due to hunger. I know I'm not alone - many of us have an irrational fear of the dentist. Before I went in to see mine, a family came out and I heard Miss Hayward informing the parent that the children weren't brushing their teeth enough. It's a big responsibility as a parent, and I tried to look sympathetically at the embarrassed Dad who walked past me on his way out. How can a parent convey the future of poor dental health to a kid - without demonstrating it the pain? Are those gruesome pictures on the wall of bad teeth effective? 

I've been on a bit of  a journey with this dentist, she fitted me with a mouth guard, chatted to me about my thinning tooth enamel, taught me about flavourless flouride toothpaste, I needed to use during a course of aromatherapy and she explained to me about how the root canal treatment I now need might be in 20 years time. She gives me hope.. 

As I lay in her chair yesterday, looking up at the beautiful desert island beach scene on her ceiling, above a second equally spectacular  poster of the Amazon rainforest I noted my knuckles weren't so tightly grasped around the chair as she drilled away my old filling to replace it with a new one. So does that mean I now like the dentist! I walked out of their happy before I got the bill! But once I got in my car, after the shock of the cost, I found myself justifying it - that her brilliant bedside manner and skill in helping me overcome my dentistry issues was worth the money. It's official. I'm losing the plot!