I don't post often and I know this has run its course so apologies if adding to the steam but I have been away for a while and have just read all 13 pages of this thread in one hit - gripping stuff, so just have to add a thought or 2! To me (as a have a fag 'because I can' or 'because I want to' or 'because I need to' type occasional smoker), the interesting bits are: 1. that there might not have been an insight into smokers' psyches and therefore incorrect, possibly patronising, judgements have ensued. We (smokers) know it's bad, for us, for our companions, for our unborn babies (we can't fail to have cottoned on to that, no matter how ill or well educated we are) but we still might do it, possibly in a modified way, because the immediate addictive temptation can be greater than the fear of long term effects. So any lecturing or education or telling off in the street may not make any difference at all. 2. the way that the thread turned into a debate/commentary on a red top style headline created by the OP. This is EDF at its very best, I think. Wind them up, pull them out, and stretch it. The 'Pregnant woman smoking in Lordship Lane' subject line had so many angles to cover. (And it was followed by a more recent celeb occurence of virtually the same thing - reference Billie Piper caught on camera puffing in the pub garden, villified by the press because she was beside a/her child). Similar to Ligaxxxx's spotting, we have no idea of the context - first fag of the year, fag 'because I've just got to', 20th fag of the day? Who knows and, IMO, it's none of my business. BTW I have 2 healthy teenagers and possibly smoked about 10 or 15 fags over each pregnancy, when I felt the urge. It was a combination of 'I know I shouldn't' and physiology (hormones tell you not to add to toxins to your blood) that meant a bigger urge wasn't there.