Pregnant Smokers, What Damage Are You Causing?
ByOne thing that drives me INSANE is when a woman is pregnant and she lights up a cigarette! I am sure she is addicted to it and she has tried to quit a thousand times. Yea, yea, yea, I’ve heard it all before. Aside from the fact that it is known that cigarettes cause cancer in the person smoking them, sit back and think for a minute what it is doing to that baby. Nicotine is a stimulant, a very addictive one at that. Again, another addiction for sweet helpless baby.
Pregnant women should avoid cigarettes, first hand and second hand. Have you read the Surgeon General’s warning on the side of your cigarette pack lately lady? It clearly says it could cause complications. IF you don’t have a miscarriage from it, your baby is very likely to be underweight. It is also cutting of the oxygen your baby is getting. Your blood is filled with nicotine instead of oxygen and nutrients that your baby needs. By smoking during your pregnancy, you are also increasing your child’s chance of having addictive behaviors when they are older. Their bodies easily accept the addictions because it’s what they know.
The pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
Even after the baby is born, moms should stay away from the cigarettes. They should certainly keep their baby away from the second hand smoke. The baby is at an increased risk of having SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and many health problems. Things like ear infections, asthma, allergies, bronchitis, and general illnesses are the ones that come to the top of my mind.
Did you know that smoking ‘could’ also cause you to have a difficult time in conceiving? Does it mean you won’t? No. Trust me… I’ve known a few smokers that had no trouble at all getting pregnant. However, if you are already having a hard time, this may not be helping you any. During the preconception period, maternal exposure to secondhand smoke can potentially affect female fertility by altering the balance of hormones that affect oocyte production, including growth hormone, cortisol, luteinizing hormones, and prolactin (Mattison 1982; Daling et al. 1987; Mattison and Thomford 1987), or by reducing motility in the female reproductive tract (Mattison 1982; Daling et al. 1987)
To find out more about smoking and the affects it has on you and your child, go to my resource page for a few links to check out. Don’t forget to subscribe to learn more ways to get your body ready for baby!
Dee Stafford
~Dee Stafford is a freelance writer and the content contained here is her opinion from research. Check her resources page for background data.
3 Comments
January 7th, 2010 at 1:14 PM
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January 22nd, 2010 at 5:04 AM
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March 14th, 2010 at 2:29 AM
Please don’t miunderstand these corrections. I am not nit-picking but I do take issue with any and all medical information that might easily mislead (we are living in a world were sane mothers are doing the insane by not vaccinating their children (b/c one qwack who was working for a lawyer who wanted to sue the vaccine makers did a flawed study on a handful of kids), where millions refused the H1N1 vaccine – all acts of nuttery without even a shred of medical reason)
YOU SAID:
By smoking during your pregnancy, you are also increasing your child’s chance of having addictive behaviors when they are older. Their bodies easily accept the addictions because it’s what they know.
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There is no evidence that I know of that would support that statement. I have yet to hear of any ‘memory’ a child has of smoking or drug use in the womb or any evidence that claims that they are more susceptible to addiction SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE of this act.
I believe there is some correlation between drug use in parents and subsequent drug use in their offspring however correlation is not causation, this could just as well be due to the offspring being exposed to the same environment (beit socio-economic or otherwise) that lead to their parent’s decline. It could also be due to shared genetic factors.
The fact of the matter is that *we don’t know* what causes and sustains addiction. There are addicts who were born with Fetal Alcohol syndrome and raised in horrific broken homes; and there are addicts who were born to Prenatal Vitamin taking, yoga doing, super-moms who slept in an oxygen chamber and then gave them the best upbringing and education love & money could muster!
It’s one of those things that make life so………interesting…
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The pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
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…And we really don’t fully understand *any* those processes, esp the behavioral aspects.
Nicotine addiction (tobacco is just the plant, like papaver or coca) is probably more closely related to cocaine addiction. Heroin tends to have a more pronounced physical withdrawal symptoms while cocaine and tobacco produce mostly psychological withdrawal (this isn’t to say one is worse than the other… two different forms of torture that you don’t want and you DEFINITELY don’t want for your baby!)