This doll head with a fetus attached at the bottom and pump at back… found in a school.

At first glance, this object looks like a bizarre doll in a jar. But it was not made as a toy. It is an anti-smoking educational model commonly known as “Smokey Sue Smokes for Two,” designed to show how cigarette smoke can affect a developing baby during pregnancy. Museum and health-education sources describe it as a teaching doll used to illustrate the effects of smoking on the fetus.

When did it first appear? A well-documented museum example in the Science Museum Group collection is identified as an England, 1995 health education doll. At the same time, later examples were still being manufactured and displayed years afterward, including a 2018 example made by Health Edco shown by the Royal College of Physicians. That means the model was part of public-health education for years, not just a one-time product.

Its main purpose was simple but powerful: to give people a visual demonstration of what smoking during pregnancy could expose a baby to. According to health-education descriptions, when the model “smokes” a cigarette, tar and other pollutants collect around the fetus model, making the message immediate and easy to understand. The fetus shown is described as being at about 7 months of gestation.

Here is how it works: the jar is filled with water, a cigarette is placed in the doll’s mouth, and a bulb at the back is pumped to pull smoke through the device. As the smoke moves through, the liquid around the fetus gradually turns brown with tar, visually demonstrating that smoke-related pollutants can reach the baby. Product descriptions also note that the jar and fetus are easy to clean after use.

What makes Smokey Sue memorable is how unsettling it looks. That was likely the point. Public-health educators often used strong visual tools to make warnings harder to ignore, and this model was created to leave a lasting impression. So while it may seem creepy today, Smokey Sue was really a classroom and health-education device meant to warn people about the risks of smoking during pregnancy.