Where pregnant teenagers smoke to have small babies for painless childbirth

In what is likely the most disturbing teen trends, pregnant young girls in Australia are turning to smoking tobacco cigarettes to keep their babies' weight low and make childbirth less painful, local press reported.

The shocking finding that young Australian pregnant women are more terrified of childbirth pain than the serious adverse effects smoking during pregnancy can have on the fetus – including higher stillbirth rates and increased risk of childhood asthma and allergies – was revealed by a recently published study.

An Associate Professor Simone Dennis from the Australian National University found that girls as young as 16 are either taking up smoking or increasing their daily cigarette intake in an effort to have smaller babies, due to fears that their young bodies will not be able to handle childbirth.

Even more disturbing is the fact that the teen mothers-to-be were inspired to take on this practice by the health warnings on Australian cigarette packs, some of which state that 'smoking while pregnant can reduce the weight of your baby'.

Rather than being deterred by this, they decided to embrace smoking as a way of keeping their unborn babies' weight low in hopes of a less painful childbirth. Studies show that smoking mothers are twice as likely as non-smokers to have lower weight babies, about 200g lighter, on average.

"Some were young, 16 or 17 years, and their overriding fear was 'Oh my God, I'm going to have an enormous child', so they were actively using cigarettes to medicate against that," Prof Denis told local journalists.

"Some had even taken it up for the first time for that very reason, and some smoked harder, hoping the promise on the packet would come true. If you smoked more, you could make it better. I was really struck by that," she added.