Smoking & Pregnancy
SMOKING KILLS
Smoking a cigarette is one of the unhealthiest things a human can do. The health risks for adults that smoke are well known. Thirty per cent of all cancer deaths can be attributed to smoking. Cigarette smoke has been directly linked to an increased risk of many diseases including cancer, heart disease and even sexual impotence.
Cancers other than lung cancer which are linked to smoking include:
- Cancer of the bladder, kidneys, liver
- Cancers of the mouth, lip and throat
- Cervical cancer
- Leukaemia
- Pancreatic cancer
- Stomach cancer
Tobacco smoke and it's tar contain over 4,000 different chemicals. At least 37 are known to cause cancer, they are carcinogens, some are even said to cause genetic damage. The most prominent of these are: Acetone, Ammonia, Arsenic, Benzene, Carbon Monoxide, Formaldehyde & Nicotine.
Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block blood vessels, which leads to heart attack. Tar coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer. The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood vessels. Smoking also interferes with your absorption of B vitamins, vitamin C and folic acid; lack of folic acid can result in neural tube defects.
When a pregnant woman smokes so does her baby. The more a pregnant woman smokes, the greater the risk to her baby. Tobacco smoke affects the unborn baby (fetus) because the placenta joins mother and baby. The baby is totally reliant on mother to provide all the food and oxygen he needs for proper growth, through the blood that passes from her body into his via the placenta. Pregnant smokers have placentas that do not work as well as they should, every time a pregnant smoker has a cigarette, her baby gets less food and oxygen. Because of this direct link between mother and baby many of the highly poisonous compounds are transported by the mother’s blood but even more importantly researchers speculate that the accumulation of carbon monoxide in the fetal blood stream could lead to serious reductions in oxygen to the developing fetus. It is estimated that the unborn baby of a smoker can get up to 25% less oxygen. It has also been found that the carbonhaemoglobin levels (heamoglobin that is carrying carbon monoxide instead of oxygen) concentrates in the developing fetus reaching twice the levels of that mother.
Babies of smokers are more likely to be born before their due date and they do not grow as well as they should. Smoking nearly doubles a woman's risk of having a low birth weight baby. A consequence of low birth weight (less than 5 ½ pounds) means that the baby can face increased risk of cerebral palsy, mental retardation and learning problems.
Your baby practices breathing before birth. Tobacco smoke stops these breathing-like movements, which can affect lung development. Asthma and other respiratory problems have connections to direct and passive smoking.
Smoking has also been linked to defects such as cleft lip and or cleft palate
Smoking is also associated with a number of pregnancy complications, including:
- ectoptic pregnancy – where the embryo becomes implanted in the fallopian tube or other abnormal sites, instead of the uterus. These result in an aborted pregnancy not a birth.
- placental complications including placenta previa (low-tying placenta that covers part or all of the opening of the uterus) and placental abruption (in which the placenta peels away, partially or almost completely, from the uterine wall before delivery), both can result in heavy bleeding during delivery that jeopardises the life of both mother and baby.
- increased risk of stillbirth, miscarriage, and severe vaginal bleeding.
The consequences of smoking before, during and after can all have long lasting effects on the development and abilities in later life. Children of non-smoking mothers generally were found to perform better than the two smoking groups (active and passive) on tests of math ability, speech and language skills, intelligence, visual/spatial abilities and behavioural problems.
In summary smoking effects all stages:
- before pregnancy it can affect mother’s fertility, smoking can decrease your chances of getting pregnant.
- during pregnancy it affects both the growing baby and mother’s ability to give birth safely.
- after birth smoking by the mother can directly enter the babies bloodstream via breastmilk, or, even passively through ‘second hand’ smoke. Babies of smokers are also twice as likely to die from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) as babies of non-smokers.
Smoking should be stopped by mother and father-to-be, before they even start considering getting pregnant for the safety of mother and child and for optimum development.
It is difficult for a mother-to-be to give up smoking if her partner also smokes; the best solution is for fathers-to-be to also give up. This will support mother and mean that the child’s development will not be affected by passive smoking.
Babies & Smoke Don't Mix!
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