It just looked wrong seeing her smoking while at the same time talking about her pregnancy. I guess back in the '60's they didn't know smoking was bad for pregnant women. I don't think those warning labels were on the sides of the packages yet.
shareI was born in '63 and my mom said the obgyn told her she could smoke 5 cigarettes a day! Unfortunately she listened to him. I had to stay in hospital for a week after I was born so they could "clear" my lungs.
shareI can't say for sure whether doctors were warning pregnant women to the dangers of smoking (or drinking) while pregnant back in the 60's, as I wasn't born until 1968, but I do know that if it was brought up at all they obviously didn't make much of an impression on too many women (or their spouses and family's for that matter) judging from the amount of women who smoked and drank alcohol while pregnant back then. I know my Mother smoked while pregnant with me and if I'm not mistaken also drank some alcohol and she was not the type of woman who would have intentionally brought harm to her unborn child. I do believe that like tweakgirl stated most obgyn's recommended using in "moderation"; a cigarette here and there, or a glass of wine at meals.
I also believe that my Mother like many others in those days were in some denial to the dangers of smoking cigarettes in general, so having an obgyn "give permission" to smoke at all was probably taken as a licence to smoke up! I remember my Mom using the "we didn't know it was bad for you back when I started" excuse for her lifelong addiction to cigarettes. My reply was ususlly something like "You may not have known the extent of the dangers, but don't tell me you thought it was harmless to inhale hot smoke and tar into your lungs all day...come on Mom you are smarter than that." I loved my Mom and couldn't have had a better more caring one, I just would have liked to have had her around longer and without all the suffering she endured.
Sorry for going off the subject a bit, I tend to get carried away when I bring up my Mom and her heavy smoking.
If anyone has any first hand experience as to what doctors were telling, or not telling women as far as smoking while pregnant back in the 60's or 70's for that matter please share. Also what was the general attitude in society when it came to smoking while pregnant in those days? I believe it was not considered a big deal until the actual studies were published and the facts were no longer in question but I would be interested to hear from someone who was around in that era.
I did not intend to come off as judgemental or an anti-smoking zealot, I am only curious as to what the attitude to smoking while pregnant was back in the 60's, please no hate mail!
-------------GARY
Do you remember the spell?
Asa Nisi Masa... Asa Nisi Masa... sh!
My baby was born in 1967, and smoking while pregnant wasn't frowned upon at the time. Smoking was known to be bad for one's lungs, but fetuses didn't seem affected, or so it was thought. In fact, I have a book on pregnancy, and (pardon me) the expectant mother was advised to have a cigarette if she was constipated. I still have the book. Incidentally, my son has grown to a fine man who is 6' 4", so my cigarettes didn't seem to harm him. I think I was just lucky.
shareI was born in '62 and my Mom's OB recommended she continue smoking to keep me from getting 'too big' and thus becoming a more difficult birth... which explains all of those 8-10 pound babies now.
shareMy mother never smoked, but my father did constantly, the entire time I lived at home growing up. Now he just chews...nasty! I don't know how my mother kisses him. It's bad enough to visit and find his spit cup left sitting around when he forgets to throw it away. But that's a different discussion altogether.
However, along with the second hand smoke, my mother's doctor told her he didn't like women to gain more than ten pounds...really. So, he put her on a 1,000 calorie per day diet while pregnant with me. My mother to this day, at 70, might have gained ten pounds her whole life...she is very nice looking.
She said I must have been starving, as I was born three months early and weighed two pounds, four ounces. I am allergic to everything on the planet thanks to my under done state too. I can't tolerate plants, animals, many foods, fibers such as wool, dust, smoke, perfume...and that is the short list.
So, doctors in the 60s really had some wild ideas, and it's a wonder so many of us survived.
According to the internet, the warning weren't put on cigarette packs until the 1980's.
Watching her smoke continually through the movie reminded me of her husband, Paul Newman, dying of lung cancer. He made the statement that
he had quit smoking many years ago, but it had already done the damage.
The roots of warnings came in the early-mid sixties. It was then that the tobacco companies were banned from advertising cigarettes on television.
shareThe timing is off on this. TV advertising of tobacco was banned in 1970. However, I have in hand, right now, the July 21, 1975 issue of People magazine, with of all people, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman on the cover. On the inside back cover, inside front cover, pp 18 and 19, 29, 36, 52 and 61 are all full page ads for cigarette. And yes, the surgeon general's warning is noted in the lower left corner, practically invisible if you were used to seeing it.
shareThe dangers might have been better known much sooner had the tobacco companies not intentionally buried the studies that highlighted them.
share"Watching her smoke continually through the movie reminded me of her husband, Paul Newman, dying of lung cancer. He made the statement that
he had quit smoking many years ago, but it had already done the damage."
Yes, Paul Newman, taken away in the prime of his life...at 83!
I was born in the sixties myself, both parents were heavy smokers, and I had a rather low birth weight, as did my sister and brother. We grew up fine but I always blamed the smoking for my bad eyesight.
shareWas teenager in the 60s. Graduated when this movie was made (1968)
Raised in family of smokers. No filters anywhere. Father Pall Mall, Mother Lucky Strike. Me nothing. I'll probably go from all the second-hand smoke I inhaled.
The original Surgeon General's warning about cigarettes was actually in 1964. The first required labeling on each pack of cigarettes was a year later. (So-called "medical research" by the cigarette industry itself indicated there were no problems - surely the tests said differently, but they lied about it - in any case, the Surgeon General decided to believe the research done by more reputable, non-biased sources.)
Also, in the late 1960's, advertising for tobacco products was banned in broadcast media (television and radio), but was still allowed for many years in newspapers, magazines, billboards. Over the years, the cigarette pack warning labels became more strongly worded, as was the lengthier warning report (especially since the 1980's).
My mother-in-law was a heavy smoker of unfiltered Luckies, and her husband of Camel's. Amazing that my spouse survived childhood, let alone mom's pregnancy! My spouse Does have a life-long, dry hacking cough that sounds for all the world like a smoker's cough - and I will always wonder if it is due to all that second-hand smoke from childhood (and indeed, from before birth).
She (mom-in-law) had once been part of a "man-on-the-street" advertisement on a local radio show. The way they did it - "First have one of yours. Now have one of ours. Isn't ours smoother?" (etc etc.) Well of course it tasted smoother; the first few drags desensitize the mouth and throat! The "test" Might have been different, if she'd had theirs first. Years later she felt foolish for having fallen for such crap.
She told me she had gotten hooked at a very young age, not only because it was considered "cool" back then, but because it was commonly believed (by lies in the advertising) that smoking was actually Good for you. "Don't you feel calmer after smoking?" Well, of course! Smoking is powerfully addictive. If you feel "nervous" and a cigarette calms you down, it is because you are in withdrawal from the tobacco drug, and by smoking you are getting a "fix." Folks like my dear mom-in-law were already long-since hooked. She tried valiantly to quit several times, but eventually died of a massive, smoking-related heart attack.
Thanks for letting me vent. It has been several years ago and I miss her still.
I remember the appearance of the warning on cigarettes quite well because it happened while I was in Viet-Nam; '65-'66.
We got a lot of laughs about the health warning while we were in a combat zone.
My brothers and I were born between the late 1940s and late 1950s, and our mother smoked a couple of packs a day the whole time she was pregnant. None of us had any birth defects or have any smoking related maladies today, in spite of the fact that we grew up in a house with both her and our dad continuously smoking (except when they were showering or sleeping). The only positive thing about it was that we all found it so disgusting that none of us took up the vile habit, so we're probably healthier in the long run because our parents smoked. They were not exceptional; most adults smoked in those days. There were ashtrays on library tables and butts all over the floor in grocery stores. I remember two doctors who smoked while they were in the little examining room with me. It was a putrid time!
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