A young woman has met with backlash and outrage after she posted a photo on her Instagram of a baby smoking a cigarette.
The photo was posted by an 18-year-old from Spain, who goes by the username ‘lapelirrojah_delbarriooh’ (‘neighbourhood redhead’) and depicts a young child, suspected to be around one year old, smoking a lit cigarette.
The photo is captioned “Already smoking at a year old, love you little one, you [are] my f****ng life”.
The picture also shows the end of the cigarette alight, suggesting that the infant may have been inhaling at the time.
The image was posted on her Instagram in January and garnered over 2,000 likes and 36,000 comments before being taken down by the user.
Since it was discovered by users on social media, the young woman has received death threats and accusations of child abuse.
The young woman’s Instagram.
A Spanish paediatrician spoke out about the picture, telling The Local it was child abuse.
“Tobacco is intrinsically even worse than heroin and to give it to a baby whose lungs are still developing,” said Antonio Nieto, “Even children who are exposed to passive smoking are more likely to develop lung conditions such as asthma or chronic bronchitis.”
“I think the police would definitely consider it to be child abuse. It is just absolutely unbelievable.”
Although several other pictures of the child are captioned with ‘my girl’ and ‘my first’, it is not known whether the child is her own, or not.
