The word ‘mother’ is typically synonymous with care, love, and all good things on the earth. However, smoking mothers may be inadvertently killing and maiming their children, both born and unborn. Shocked? It’s true. Smoking mothers are potentially gifting their children with lung cancer and many other similarly devastating diseases through secondhand smoke. Pregnant women who smoke cigarettes harm their unborn babies directly in the womb.
Smoking is not only detrimental to your health, but also to the health of your unborn child. Cigarette smoke contains thousands of harmful chemicals that can cross the placenta and enter the bloodstream of your developing baby. These toxic substances can damage the developing brain, lungs, and other organs. Additionally, smoking increases the risk of miscarriage, preterm labor, and placental abruption. So not only is smoking bad for you, it’s also bad for your child.
1. Smoking is detrimental to fertility in both men and women. Smoking harms women’s ability to move eggs to the fallopian tubes and affects pregnancy hormones. For men, it reduces semen count and sperm motility. In many cases, smoking also affects the shape of the sperm, making it incapable of penetrating the egg.
2. Children born of smoking parents are more likely to inherit a low fertility syndrome and suffer from a great number of infertility problems. This is because smoking can damage a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm, which can lead to fertility problems.
3. Smoking is one of the leading causes of impotency in men, as it interferes with the blood supply to the penis. This can cause erectile dysfunction, or the inability to sustain an erection long enough for sexual intercourse. Smoking not only causes impotence but also contributes to other health issues such as heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory problems.
4. It’s not just the mother’s health that’s put at risk when she smokes during pregnancy. Nicotine addiction can start pre-birth as nicotine enters the baby’s bloodstream through the placenta. This makes it more likely that the child will become a smoker and develop smoking-related diseases later in life.
5. Smoking puts pregnant women and their babies at risk for a number of health problems. In rare cases, the placenta is directly affected by smoking, causing a miscarriage of the fetus, or death in the womb. These risks are just one more reason to quit smoking for good.
6. Babies born to mothers who smoke are more likely to be born prematurely and have a low birth weight.
7. Vital organs in babies of smoking mothers are likely to be less developed than those of non-smoking mothers. This is particularly true of the liver, which can have lifelong effects on the child.
8. Babies of smoking pregnant women have 25% lower lung function compared to babies of non-smoking mothers. They are also more likely to have respiratory problems like pneumonia and bronchitis.
9. Babies of smoking mothers are twice as likely to die from sudden-infant-death syndrome than babies of non-smoking mothers.
10. Women who smoke 15–20 cigarettes a day during pregnancy are more likely to have sickly babies. These babies are more likely to suffer from health problems such as respiratory infections, asthma, and even Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
If you’re pregnant, you should quit smoking for the sake of your child. Cigarette smoke contains harmful chemicals that can damage your child’s developing lungs. Additionally, smoking increases the risk of preterm labor, low birth weight, and other health problems for both you and your child.
Quitting smoking is one of the best things you can do for your health and the health of your child. Talk to your doctor today about ways to quit smoking and get started on the road to a healthier life. As a mother, you are the first and most important role model in your child’s life. Don’t let smoking be the poison that jeopardizes your child’s health and future.
