Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy

Pregnancy is a joyful time for most families because that means the mother is bringing a new member into the world who will be welcomed into the family. A mother holding her newborn healthy baby in her arms for the first time makes her feel a sense of pride. This is because she has followed all of her doctor’s instructions and listened to his advice on how to keep herself healthy, and how to deliver a healthy baby after her nine months are up. But what if the new mom to be did not listen to the doctor’s advice? What if she decided to smoke during her pregnancy because she assumed it would not hurt the baby? What health problems or birth defects would the baby be challenged with when it was born? Women who smoke during their pregnancies on

A baby’s genes are determined at conception. If something is faulty at this stage, this can have a huge impact on the child’s development. This may be physical or intellectual. If a mother takes drugs or smokes when pregnant, there is an increased chance of delivering an underweight baby at birth. It can also lead to cognitive problems for the child as they get older.

Smoking during the first trimester of pregnancy could lead to the placenta not developing fully. As the placenta carries oxygen and blood to the foetus this may impair growth and link to low birth weights. Babies born to smoking mothers are 30% more likely to have a premature baby which could lead to respiratory distress, problems feeding and they could have difficulty regulating their body temperature. Babies undergo withdrawal like systems and tend to be more jittery and harder to settle. Babies being brought up in a smoking household are at increased risk of cot death and may go on to develop asthma during childhood.

The NIOSH study reveals that working women’s i.e., reproductive age involved in smoking has adverse effects on their pregnancy and the health of their infant. The evaluation of data of 2009-2013 from the National Health Interview Survey discovered there were 17% of working women who were smokers at their reproductive age and 76% were daily smokers. Further, the study shows the women working in certain industries and businesses have higher smoking

Smoking while pregnant can cause a various of issues to the fetus and to the child while they are in their young ages. It can cause the child to be born 162-226 grams. This weight is lighter than a baby whose mother did not smoke. For example, while the baby is in the womb, it will slow the development of the baby’s organs, due to the toxins entering the baby’s bloodstream (Holmes ?). Another way it can harm the baby while he/she is still in the womb is by causing the baby to be stillborn (not cited yet). This sympathetic damage would have lasting impact on the mother psychologically. This could be especially painful when she has done everything right to protect her unborn

Quitting smoking before becoming pregnant is the ideal situation. For women that are already pregnant quitting early can still give your baby a chance of healthy development. Some mothers and adults may think it is ok to start smoking after the baby is born, but secondhand smoke is still harmful to the baby’s health. Intervention programs start with your primary care physician and the nursing staff. They screen for tobacco usage in the adult’s home where the baby with life or currently living. Will give brief advice on how to stop smoking, provide counseling referrals for behavioral interventions. Also, pharmaceutical intervention in non-pregnant adults living in the same household, to reduce the risk of second-hand smoke exposer. Community

The relationship between maternal smoking and fetal development shows that smoking raises the risk of early miscarriage and stillbirth. In the early stages of fetal development, cigarette smoke may cause genetic damage to the unborn baby. Smoking can change the lining of the uterus making it harder for the implantation of the fertilized egg. The dangerous chemicals found in cigarettes can cause a mother’s placenta to separate from the womb at a premature time. Smoking later in pregnancy appears to decrease the placenta’s ability to deliver nutrients to a developing baby. Some evidence even indicates that heavy smoking by

More then 15% of women smoking while pregnant. Babies who's mothers smoke have more then 20% higher chance of being born with cleft lip, cleft palates, shortened or missing limbs, and abnormally shaped heads compared to babies born to nonsmoking mothers. Babies born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy are even more likely to have learning disorders and behavioral problems.

One thing that I found it to be very interested was that those mothers that smoke during pregnancy have been tested that their children may have different behavioral differences between a child with a mother that did not smoke. The textbook mentions that a recent study in Italy demonstrated that the fetal brains that were exposed to secondhand smoke would impact the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

Overall, of 103830 records 82534 mothers’ data were analyzed that were obtained from the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Certificate of Live Birth. Descriptive results of maternal and birth characteristics are shown in Table 1. Approximately, 57% of the mothers were white, 33% black, 7% Asian, and 3.6% other ethnicities, respectively. 29% of the maternal age at delivery was between 20-24 years old, 22% was between 25-29 years old, 19% was between 30-34 years old, 14% was between 19 years and younger, 11% was between 35-39 years old, and 4% was between 40 years and older, respectively. The number of LBW babies (< 2500 g) among mothers who smoked and non-smoked were 1359 (1.6%) and 81144 (98.3%), respectively. 16 % of mothers who smoked (n=5544) gave low birth weight babies. 5.4% of low birth weight babies had mothers smoked between 10-14 cigarettes per day.

According to Hill, Young, Burley, Carter & Lang (2013), smoking amongst teenage girls is the most popular risk factor during pregnancy. The numerous effects of smoking while pregnant are (a) premature births (b) still births (c) miscarriages and (d) low birth rates. There are fifty seven percent of teenage mothers that smoke

According to the Center for Disease Control, (CDC) there are toxic chemicals in cigarettes that “affect the brain in ways that interfere with its regulation of infants' breathing” (CDC, 2010). Autopsy reports also show “higher concentrations of nicotine in their lungs and higher levels of cotinine (a biological marker for secondhand smoke exposure) than infants who die from other causes” (CDC, 2010).

The relationship between maternal smoking and fetal development shows that smoking raises the risk of early miscarriage and stillbirth. In the early stages of fetal development, cigarette smoke may cause genetic damage to the unborn baby. Smoking can change the lining of the uterus making it harder for the implantation of the fertilized egg. The dangerous chemicals found in cigarettes can cause a mother’s placenta to separate from the womb at a premature time. Smoking later in pregnancy appears to decrease the placenta’s ability to deliver nutrients to a developing baby. Some evidence even indicates that heavy smoking by

Among the many environmental factors that can affect infant learning, prenatal cigarette exposure has proven to be a topic of interest in behavioral teratology due to the large number of health effects it is associated with. Some of the health effects of prenatal cigarette exposure include: lower birth weight, smaller head circumference, lower IQ, attention dysfunction, hyperactivity and other conduct problems, as well as school failure (Mezzacappa, E., 2011, p. 881-891). There are some human studies that investigate the cognitive deficits related to prenatal cigarette exposure which include: auditory, visual attention, and working memory issues.

When people grow up in a smoking household, they are exposed to secondhand smoke (WHO, 2016). Secondhand smoke can also affect health outside of the home, as over 90 percent of the world’s population does not have full coverage on smoke-free public health actions. Second hand smoke exposure affects a third of the world and is most common in households, contributing to pulmonary complications and over half a million deaths yearly (WHO, 2016). Most children do not have a choice of growing up in a household that is smoke-free, especially when their parents have been smoking before they were born. The long term exposure of living in a poor quality smoking household impacts an individual’s health, without them having any other housing option.