Pregnant mum smoked 3500 cigarettes
The mother of a 14-week-old baby has come under fire for claiming the 3500 cigarettes she smoked while pregnant were good for her baby.
During her pregnancy, British woman Charlie Wilcox, 20, claimed smoking would make her unborn child's heart stronger by restricting her oxygen supply and making her heart work harder, according to reports.
"It's making the baby use its heart on its own in the first place, so that when it comes out, it's going to be able to do them (sic) things by itself," she told BBC3's Misbehaving Mums To Be at the time.
"Where's the proof that it's so bad to smoke?"
Lilly was born 10 days early weighing 2.7kg.
"Midwives tested Miss Wilcox's carbon monoxide levels when she was pregnant and discovered they were six times higher than the level considered safe for a baby," Britain's Daily Mail reported.
Miss Wilcox, of Kent, said it was her right to smoke while pregnant. She described smoking as "like a hobby".
"I don't believe it was hurting Lilly," she said.
"I wasn't ready to give up smoking. I think if I'd given up straight away, the stress would have been more harmful to the baby.
"I felt her kick every day, and on every scan I went to she was healthy and growing.
"There is nothing wrong with her. I think she was a good weight, and she's developing well and now weighs 13lb (5.9kg)."
Miss Wilcox blamed her friend's miscarriage nine weeks into her pregnancy on the fact that the friend had quit smoking.
"Me and my friends think it's because she gave up smoking," she said.
Miss Wilcox said she smoked about 20 cigarettes a day during the first six months of her pregnancy, before cutting down to five a day, The Mail said.
She hadn't smoked in front of Lilly since the birth.
"I love smoking. I love just having that something there to do," she said.
The chief executive of a British anti-smoking group, Deborah Arnott, said Miss Wilcox's insistence that there was nothing wrong with smoking during pregnancy was simply based on denial.
"If you are a smoker and pregnant, or have had the baby, there's no way that you want to believe you have done anything to harm your child," Ms Arnott said.
"It's a classic case of denial despite all the evidence there is about the damage caused to babies in the womb by the mother's smoking, from ill-health to raising the risk of death."
