IndexLiterature reviewHypothesisMethods and populationData collectionData analysisResults and findingsDiscussion and implicationsApparently, smoking during pregnancy is harmful to both the life of the mother and that of the fetus. Studies have confirmed that most parents are aware of the harm caused by smoking, but are firmly determined to quit. It is currently estimated that over 10% of European women smoke, while only 5% of Japanese women have this harmful habit. However, according to Goszczynska, Knol-Michalowska and Petrykowsa, only a few of these involve pregnant women. The authors of this article argue that the majority of women who smoke during pregnancy are those of low socioeconomic status. As most of them become drug addicts, it eventually became difficult to counsel these women about the dangers of smoking. The problem is that they have their own secular justifications for smoking during pregnancy. Even though most medical professionals play a significant role in discouraging women from smoking, most of them do not quit the habit. The authors of the article believe that medical professionals fail because they do not use effective methods. Instead, they rely on their narrow, one-sided education as the only mitigating strategy to help these women. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayLiterature ReviewMothers and their babies share a connection with each other through the umbilical cord. The fetus receives nourishment from the mother through the umbilical cord. Therefore, it is imperative that mothers abstain from dangerous habits such as smoking if they want to reduce the risk of congenital anomalies in their children (Popa et al., 2013). Most pregnant women are aware of the harmful effects smoking has on their children. health and the health of their fetus, yet they find it difficult to break the habit. As a result, the pressure from wanting to abstain from smoking and the knowledge that smoking is harmful to their children causes a psychological problem called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a feeling of mental discomfort, which occurs when you have two conflicting thoughts at the same time. Therefore, most pregnant women suffer from this psychological problem because two conflicting thoughts lurk in their mind. They believe they are good mothers who want to quit smoking and at the same time they know they are mothers who want to harm their children. However, most of these women do not quit smoking, even if they try to find ways to reduce the psychological distress that comes with it. causes of cognitive dissonance. Studies have established that they often change their perceptions of smoking and pregnancy to reduce cognitive dissonance (Goszczynska et al., 2016). Most scholars believe that some women would rationalize why it is necessary to smoke during the pregnancy period. However, such beliefs arise from personal experience and overheard information as they tend to have no scientific basis. Most women who say smoking is essential believe it only as a way to justify their addiction. Apparently, narrow anti-tobacco education has done so little to dissuade pregnant women from smoking, because most health professionals' arguments often contradict the knowledge obtained. from the personal experience of most pregnant women (Goszczynska et al., 2016). In other words, health professionals can be effective in deterringPregnant women from smoking only if they abstain from their prophylactic programs to manage the issue from the pregnant woman's point of view. Currently, health workers are encouraged by scholars to first analyze expectant mothers' secular justifications for smoking before resuming their prophylaxis programs. However, according to Goszczynska et al., only a few researchers have adopted this method. (2016). The advantage of this method over other methods is that it offers researchers the ability to study a pregnant woman's thinking patterns before deciding on a mitigation strategy (Goszczynska et al., 2016). Furthermore, most of these women are allowed to provide a rational justification for why they continue to smoke during pregnancy despite knowing that it is harmful to their health. Hypotheses The goal of the study was to determine the type of lay justifications pregnant women use to justify why they continue to smoke despite the health risks. The study had to present a variety of reasons for women of all backgrounds, regardless of their race and nationality. Methods and population The study was based on data collected from Internet forums of women who presented their reasons for smoking during pregnancy. The researchers analyzed the women's thought patterns without influencing the content of their posts. Furthermore, the researchers did not contact the participants during the research process (Goszczynska et al., 2016). The research used a sample of 47 women who presented their reasons for smoking during pregnancy. The participants did not belong to any other thematic user groups of other forums. Furthermore, these women did not belong to a race; nor were they confined to one age group. The participants were people interested in the topic of parenting. In other words, they were all pregnant women who smoked. Data Collection The data used for this research was collected from the online forum. There were two reasons why the researchers chose the online forum for data collection. One of these was that it gave participants the feeling of anonymity. As a result, participants were forced to share their true thoughts keeping in mind that their true identity was hidden. Another reason is that the online forum is popular among pregnant women (Goszczynska et al., 2016). The research involved several phases. In the first phase, researchers identified the best online forums using the Google engine. Among these forums were babyboom.pl, deck-info-rodzice.pl and mamazone.pl (Goszczynska et al., 2016). Next, the authors inserted several words related to smoking and nicotine. This action led to the identification of 58 threads containing 2724 posts. Each of these posts contained a single lay justification from all participants. Data analysis All content of the posts was analyzed thematically. Initially the researchers used an inductive approach in which the content of the data guided coding and theme development. Coding helped in many ways. One of them is that it helped in data clustering. Coding also helped in sorting the data. Furthermore, it helped to group all the subthemes into two main themes. Between these two there was a theme that questioned the need to abstain from smoking and its positive effects on health; another looked at the possibility of quitting smoking. Results and findings The study did not reveal any rational justification why the majority of women smoked during pregnancy. Most justifications were subjective. The researchers realized that most of the justifications came