Smoking and Pregnancy

Smoking is a common habit across the general population. The term "smoking" has widely been used to include the use of tobacco and other products such as marijuana. However for the purposes of this article all reference will be to the use of tobacco. Smoking in pregnancy has generally become socially taboo due to the detrimental effects it is said to have in pregnancy. As many women continue to smoke before, during and after pregnancy it will be quite useful to explore the effects smoking has on a woman's body and her baby.

First of all we will look at the contents of a cigarette. The average person just picks up a cigarette and lights up without much thought as to what's in it. In reality, tobacco smoke is said to contain more than 4000 substances that can and will pass directly into the baby's blood stream from the mother. The most common one is of course nicotine. Nicotine speeds up the baby's heart rate, reduces the volume of blood to the placenta and can affect the absorption of amino acids which all can result in growth problems. Carbon monoxide affects blood flow to not only the baby's heart but also the brain. Cyanide generally retards the growth of a baby in the womb and other substances cause numerous other harmful effects.

When a pregnant woman smokes the results can be low birth weight, pre-term birth, stillbirth and congenital abnormalities. Several studies have conclusively determined that smoking is a major cause of low birth weight. A lack of oxygen due to the smoke also leads to an increased risk of pre-term birth and severe abnormalities. A poison found in cigarette smoke, called cadmium, is not only poisonous to the mother but becomes concentrated in the placenta and has been associated with stillbirth, underweight and other abnormalities. Other studies have found that the smoking parents to be are more likely to have children with deformities such as deafness, cleft palate and hair lip.

After the birth of a baby, smoking parents can cause their children to inhale amounts of nicotine, equivalent to the child directly smoking also. This increases the risk of asthma, ear, nose, chest and throat infections. One source estimates that as many as 50 children are admitted to the hospital daily due to the effects of inhaling the smoke in their environment.

The general advice to women and the people around them, including men is to stop smoking prior to getting pregnant. Those who insist on smoking should do so outside the house and not in the presence of the mother to be. For the woman planning to have a baby or who is already pregnant, if smoking is a habit, it should be given up entirely or a real effort must be made to cut down. Even a small reduction in the number of cigarettes smoked will reduce the amount of harmful substances being passed to the developing baby. This can only help to produce a healthier full-term baby.

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