How smoking harms the unborn child. The effect of smoking on a child. What happens when a pregnant woman smokes

Smoking increases the likelihood of miscarriages by 1.5 times, and the risk of stillbirths by 1.3 times. Hypoxia caused by nicotine leads to children with severe genetic disorders. But even with a successful pregnancy, the birth of a healthy, cheerful baby, it is possible long-term consequences in his adult life.

Consequences of smoking during pregnancy

A woman who smokes may well give birth to an apparently completely healthy baby. But by the age of 3-4, such children often have problems with the kidneys, heart, lymphatic and circulatory systems.

What are the consequences of smoking during pregnancy? First of all, nicotine addiction affects the health of children. They become hyperactive, suffer more often from lung diseases, and have weak immunity.

Smoking mom

A dangerous consequence is the birth of children with insufficient birth weight. With a norm of 2500 g or more, a smoker is 8 times more likely to give birth to children weighing 1500 - 2500 g.

The likelihood of having underweight children increases in older smokers, as well as in women with a long history of smoking.

Children with underweight often die in the first hours of life, and in adulthood they suffer:

  • lung diseases;
  • asthma;
  • diseases of the liver, urinary system;
  • tumors of different localization;
  • hypertension, heart defects;
  • metabolic pathologies leading to obesity, type 2 diabetes.

A 2.3-fold increase in the likelihood of lymphoma and a 4.5-fold increase in the risk of diabetes mellitus is what smoking leads to in the first trimester. If a mother smokes, her baby suffers more from colic than the baby of a non-smoking parent.

The risk of infant death increases even if only one parent smokes and the baby is breastfed.

Father smoking

A non-smoking mother, inhaling smoky air, receives a portion of toxins that is dangerous for the baby. Boys are especially affected. Their genotype is less resistant to mutations, which leads to genetic disorders.

Fathers who smoked before conception harm their unborn children. at the chromosome level. It does not disrupt their sequence, but changes the biochemistry of gene interaction. Incorrect operation genes, as proven by the new branch of genetics epigenetics, are inherited.

Taking a drag from a cigarette, the parents call in the cages child's body mutations leading in subsequent generations to autism, schizophrenia, cancer, and hematopoietic disorders.

Smoking causes changes in any cells of the body, but the cells of actively working organs - lungs, heart, liver, brain - are especially affected. Thus, in the lung cells of a heavy smoker, 600 genes were found that were changed under the influence of smoking.

When quitting tobacco, most of the malfunctioning genes are restored, but some of them remain and continue to function with disturbances. Mutations of germ cells are especially dangerous.

Disorders may not appear in children, but arise as congenital genetic disease in a generation.

Smoking by the father before conception is the cause of cancer in children in 14% of cases, which is explained by the damaging effects of nicotine on sperm DNA.

The result of the influence of tobacco addiction is:

  • increase in tumors in children by 1.7 times;
  • formation of brain tumors - 1.22 times more often;
  • formation of lymphoma – 2 times more often.

Pathologies of the genital organs are transmitted through the male line, subsequently leading to infertility.

Video lecture about the consequences of smoking during pregnancy for a child:

Consequences for children in adulthood

Children of smoking mothers start smoking earlier and become more dependent on nicotine. Early start Smoking leads to growth retardation, decreased lung capacity, poor posture, and muscle weakness.

The harm caused by nicotine during intrauterine development manifests itself even if the children of a smoking mother do not smoke.

Circulatory system

Children of smoking parents develop hemangiomas - benign tumors that arise when blood vessels. The danger lies in squeezing surrounding blood vessels, neighboring organs, as well as the transformation benign tumor to malignant.

Pathology occurs on early stages pregnancy, is most often diagnosed immediately after birth.

Respiratory system

In smoking families, the child is exposed to respiratory diseases throughout his life. The respiratory system of girls is more affected. Maternal smoking increases the risk of diseases of the paranasal sinuses, oropharynx, and trachea.

By the age of 7, children of parents who smoked during pregnancy are 35% more likely to develop asthma and are at greater risk of developing otitis media.

Organs of the reproductive system

When a girl is pregnant, maternal smoking leads to the death of the embryonic eggs of the fetus. As she grows up, a girl may face the impossibility of having her own children.

A connection has also been established between the birth of a girl with a deficiency in birth weight and breast cancer in adulthood. Suffering and reproductive system boy. Spermatogenesis disorders in adult life can lead to decreased sperm viability, a decrease in their number, and infertility.

Kidneys

The number of children with renal pathologies related to smoking. Every 6 children under the age of 10 who visit a doctor seek treatment for their kidneys. A child may be born with kidney malformations that are incompatible with life. There are positional anomalies of the kidneys - prolapse or rotation of the kidney in space.

Pathologies Bladder are less common and are usually found in boys. Rare pathology for a child - underdevelopment of the bladder, leads to the death of the baby.

TO congenital pathologies development includes hypospadias - a disease characterized by a violation of the dissolution of the final part of the ureter. Treatment of the disease is surgical, to form urethra are carried out plastic surgery, replacement tissue is taken from the child himself.

Liver

Smoking in early stages leads to liver pathologies. Children of smoking parents are 2.3 times more likely to develop liver cancer.

The risk of getting sick in adulthood increases almost 5 times if parents smoked before conception and during pregnancy.

Brain and mental activity

On later Smoking affects developing intelligence and increases the risk of having babies with developmental delays. In smoking families, children often experience difficulties with speech until the age of 3-4 years. Possibility of having delayed children mental development in smoking mothers it increases by 75%.

The mental development quotient (IQ) of such children is below average, and there is a dependence on the number of cigarettes per day and the degree of developmental delay. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day increases the risk of having a child with an IQ below 70 by 1.85 times.

Smoking in numbers

Here are the figures characterizing smoking during pregnancy:

  • 40% of infants fed by smoking mothers experience intestinal colic. For non-smoking mothers – 26%.
  • Smokers have a 2-fold increased risk of ectopic pregnancy.
  • Smokers suffer from chronic colpitis 5.22 times more often than non-smoking women. cardiovascular pathologies occur 20 times more often.
  • Spontaneous abortions occur due to smoking in 11% of cases.
  • The risk of placental abruption due to smoking increases 2.4 times.
  • The likelihood of placenta previa increases 3 times.

When pregnant with a girl, the probability of presentation increases almost 5 times; stopping smoking reduces the risk by 33%.

Risk stillbirth The rate of birth in smokers is 50% higher than in non-smokers. Death in children of smokers in the first days of life in approximately 40% of cases is caused by smoking. Vasospasm and premature rupture of membranes occur 3-4 times more often in smokers.

Lack of infant weight caused by mother's smoking leads to learning problems. Such children are 3.3 times more likely to have difficulty reading, and they have 6.5 times more difficulty in mathematics at school age.

Developmental defect spinal cord in children of smoking mothers it is 1.4 times more common, and facial clefts are 2.5 times more common. Shortening of one of the limbs is 30% more common. Maternal smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of otitis media. A third of children of smoking parents have obesity and diabetes by the age of 16.

The consequences of smoking during pregnancy in numbers:

Maternal health

Smoking while breastfeeding is dangerous for the baby and mother. During lactation in a woman high speed metabolism. Smoking during breastfeeding leads to rapid wear and tear of a woman’s body, aging.

A smoking mom risks:

  • deterioration of visual acuity, color perception;
  • hearing loss due to thickening eardrum, decreased mobility of the auditory ossicles;
  • loss, complete or partial taste sensations, sense of smell.

A cigarette lover is 3 times more likely to experience degenerative changes retina, 2 times – inflammation eyeball that can lead to blindness.

The menstrual cycle of a smoker is disrupted, menstruation is accompanied by pain and spotting. Women who smoke more than a pack of cigarettes per day have a 1.6-fold increased risk heavy menstruation with great blood loss.

Smoking increases testosterone synthesis, which leads to a relative lack of estrogen. Subcutaneous fat is distributed on the abdomen according to the male pattern.

When answering the question of how smoking affects a mother’s health, one cannot fail to mention thin skin, hoarse voice, darkening and decay of teeth, varicose veins veins caused by peripheral circulatory disorders, osteoporosis, insomnia. And this is far from a complete bouquet of diseases that nicotine addiction gives a woman.

The effect of drugs on the human body continues to affect for 10 years after stopping their use. Children of drug addicts born before the end of this period are hostage to the whims of their fathers and mothers. In addition to the deviations in health and development that are “rewarded” to parents who use drugs, the childhood of such children is by no means prosperous. That is additional factor threatening the health of a little person.

“From the screw”: how addictions affect

Statistics show that drug addicts are rarely able to give birth. healthy offspring. 80% of drug addicted parents, in to varying degrees who used psychotropic substances, children are born with various developmental defects. Any narcotic drug is capable of penetrating through the bloodstream through the placenta into the newly developing organism.

Even in cases of birth healthy baby the consequences of parental “pampering” can affect the adolescent during puberty.

Different drugs affect each person's body differently. The same applies to the consequences that are caused to the child if expectant mother uses drugs.

Drugs can cross the placenta

  • Heroin

Children born to mothers who use heroin are completely dependent on heroin from the first minutes of life. narcotic drugs. Their future life prospects are as follows:

  1. The first hours of life are a critical moment for them. Heroin withdrawal can be severe. Due to withdrawal symptoms little heart may not stand it.
  2. As children grow up, they survive and develop physically worse than peers born to healthy parents. In children, children of drug addicts, speech disorders, problems with the musculoskeletal system, and mental disabilities are detected.
  3. Statistically, children born to heroin-addicted mothers die from sudden stop breathing (syndrome sudden death, manifesting itself before the age of one year) 20 times more often than children of ordinary parents.

Children of heroin addicts are unable to learn.

Parents who are drug addicts expose their offspring to dangers such as healthy children observed ten times less often

  • Cocaine

Because of this drug, the fetus develops high blood pressure. Vasospasm occurs in the placenta, which leads to insufficient supply of nutrients and oxygen to the fetus. Hypoxia can lead to the death of the unborn baby or serious disturbances in its development. An unfavorable outcome is possible due to placental abruption or as a result of a stroke. If a baby is nevertheless born to cocaine addicts, it is often with diseases affecting the genitourinary system.

  • Amphetamine

When using α-methylphenylethylamine, the fetus experiences severe spasm of the placental vessels. Due to lack of oxygen, hypoxia can develop. In addition, amphetamine use leads to weight loss in the mother, which may not have a beneficial effect on the development of the fetus. Simultaneous manifestation oxygen starvation and lack of nutrients often leads to intrauterine death of the unborn baby. In case of birth, severely malnourished children with a large weight deficit are born.

  • Marijuana

Some women, "playing around" smoking drugs, consider them completely harmless to the body. Compared to other drugs, they may indeed seem “not harmful.” However, even regular tobacco smoking is not recommended during pregnancy, not to mention narcotic “weed.”

Having smoked one joint, a pregnant woman already risks harming the fetus. However, drug addicts cannot stop there, and addiction forces the woman to take another cigarette. This increases the risk of miscarriage or premature birth, as well as fetal development disorders. Children born to weed-smoking drug addicts have severe weight loss, hearing and vision impairment, reduced head size, and may subsequently develop cerebral palsy.

Various abnormalities are observed in children born to mothers who smoke weed.

There is no reliable data on the use of lysergic acid (LSD) yet, since this drug is quite “young”. However, according to recent observations, the “club drug” contributes to placental abruption, fetal mutation, and in the case of a successful birth, children grow up with a significantly reduced level of development compared to other peers.

  • Desomorphine

The drug “crocodile” or, in other words, desomorphine got its name because of those changes in skin that occur after its administration. The injection site becomes covered with ulcers and erosions. A purulent crust forms on top. A crocodile has approximately the same uneven skin. The drug "krokodil" is much cheaper than heroin. Its composition includes substances available in everyday life, and “crocodile” is a kind of “explosive mixture” that causes psychological dependence literally from the first dose. This human “invention” is called the “poor man’s drug.”

The degree of harm to the health of those who use “krokodil” is significantly higher than from using heroin. The components of the drug are quite toxic, and together they represent mortal danger not only for the fetus, but also for its mother. The fate of drug addicts who use such substances for more than four months is unenviable. They are no longer curable. Death from an “overdose” is inevitable. The introduction of 2-3 doses of such a substance is enough for a woman to be unable to give birth to healthy offspring in the near future.

Women planning to have healthy children should know that after a couple of doses of desomorphine they will no longer be able to give birth to such children.

What future awaits him?

What to do if your parents are drug addicts? Whether to give birth or not - unfortunately, it is impossible for a woman to forbid this, but with such children it is definitely more problems. If a child was able to survive after childbirth, this does not mean at all that he will be completely healthy, since:

  • The need to take drugs is “in the baby’s blood.”
  • The newborn has serious congenital pathologies.
  • Due to the significantly reduced immune status the growing children of such parents often get sick.

Consequences of use chemical substances Parents who are drug addicts have a negative impact on the baby’s body.

Even former drug addicts had children born with defects of the skull or face. They developed a cleft lip or cleft palate, and their eyelids turned out to be fused. Such children from drug addicts in the photo make a depressing impression.

Of course, every person has heard about the dangers of smoking. However, the number of smokers, unfortunately, is not decreasing. Moreover, you can often see an expectant mother with a cigarette. But she is responsible not only for her own life, but also for the health of the baby she carries under her heart. Let's figure out how smoking affects early pregnancy and what it can lead to.

Read in this article

What enters the body during smoking

Smoking negatively affects the condition of all human systems and organs. This destructive habit spoils appearance skin, teeth, circulatory, respiratory, digestive system, brain.

When cigarette smoke enters a woman’s body, toxic substances also reach the child, and increased concentration. An unformed embryo cannot withstand harmful effects.

Each cigarette contains these hazardous substances:

  • nicotine;
  • resins;
  • carbon monoxide;
  • carcinogenic substances;
  • methane;
  • cadmium;
  • hexamine;
  • benzopyrene;
  • acetic acid;
  • butane;
  • arsenic;
  • methanol;
  • stearic acid;
  • ammonia;
  • toluene;
  • dye.

Some heavy smokers believe that simply reducing the number of cigarettes they smoke per day is enough to clear their conscience. In fact, even 1-2 cigarettes daily have harmful effects.

What happens when a pregnant woman smokes

Why is smoking dangerous in early pregnancy? When a woman inhales cigarette smoke, the fetus experiences vasospasm, which provokes oxygen starvation. The child begins to choke. That's why smoking women Premature babies are often born weighing less than 2.5 kg. Other parameters (length, circumference chest and head) also indicate a developmental delay in the baby.

Possible consequences of smoking while pregnant

The consequences of smoking in early pregnancy for a child can be as follows:

  • premature birth;
  • child's retardation in physical and mental development;
  • intrauterine pathologies;
  • difficulties in the child with the perception of new information, lag in the school curriculum;
  • allergic problems;
  • frequent colds.

Of course, the severity possible consequences depends on the frequency of smoking. However, even a few cigarettes a day can harm the fetus.

Smoking in the first trimester

The most dangerous effect of smoking on early pregnancy is considered. If conception occurs spontaneously, not planned, the woman continues to lead a normal lifestyle without giving up bad habits.

Immediately after conception, the fetus is not yet protected by the placenta, so smoking can cause greatest harm. It is in the early stages that all organs and systems of the embryo are formed. And with external negative impact a failure may occur, which will subsequently manifest itself in pathology skeletal system, heart and other organs.

To eliminate smoking in the early stages of pregnancy before the delay, you need to give up cigarettes at the stage of planning conception.

Smoking in the second and third trimesters

In late pregnancy, smoking can also lead to abnormal development of the fetus. Increases the likelihood premature ripening placenta, early delivery.

If future mom smokes about 5–10 cigarettes per day, the risk increases. This pathology accompanied by heavy bleeding in a woman in labor, the child during this period suffers from acute oxygen starvation. Carried out on an emergency basis surgical intervention, and the risk of fetal death from lack of oxygen is quite high.

Stupid myths about smoking during pregnancy

There are many different opinions regarding the influence cigarette smoke on the course of pregnancy, on the intrauterine development of the fetus. If a woman cannot find the strength to quit smoking, she clings to excuses and continues to poison herself and her child with smoke.

Myth 1. Quitting smoking abruptly is harmful to the health of the fetus. When a woman gives up cigarettes, her body begins to cleanse itself of toxins. This process also affects the child, causing harm to his body. This is true, however, continuing to smoke is much worse for a child than giving up a bad habit.

Myth 2. High-quality cigarettes will not harm a child. In fact, expensive cigarettes contain flavorings that make the smoke more “tasty.” The same damage is caused.

Myth 3. Lighter cigarettes are not as dangerous. Indeed, light cigarettes contain less tar and nicotine, but the smoker, unnoticed by himself, smokes every day large quantity cigarettes to achieve the usual concentration of nicotine in the blood.

Myth 4. Feeling great is a sign of normality. Some women believe that the most important thing is wellness. If the expectant mother does not experience inconvenience or discomfort, it means that everything is in order in her body and the child is not harmed. This is wrong. External signs violations intrauterine development may not exist at all.

Watch the video about the consequences of smoking in early pregnancy:

Marijuana and its effect on fetal development

Smoking marijuana in the early stages of pregnancy, during conception, disrupts the process of movement of the embryo from fallopian tubes into the uterus. Because of this, pregnancy termination often occurs. If fertilization has occurred, but the woman continues to smoke weed, she may be persecuted frequent vomiting, which seriously disrupt the nutrition of the fetus.

Some of the most common consequences for a child include:

  • slowing of fetal growth;
  • attention disorder in a child;
  • visual impairment;
  • problems with the nervous system;
  • hyperactivity;
  • irritability;
  • cognitive deficits;
  • underdevelopment of social interactions;
  • decreased reproductive capacity in boys;
  • increased risk of developing schizophrenia.

If a woman overcomes her weaknesses and quits smoking as soon as she finds out about pregnancy, the risks of developing pathologies are minimal. The main thing is to lead healthy image life, be on fresh air, adjust your diet.

Of course, there are women who, despite smoking, give birth to healthy and fully developed children. However, the harm of smoking during pregnancy has been scientifically proven, so you should not put your baby at risk. born child Hoping that you will be lucky is stupid and dangerous.

Smoking during pregnancy

Myths about smoking during pregnancy

To serve this bad habit, society has developed many myths related to smoking and its “safety.”

Myth 1.
A pregnant woman should not suddenly quit smoking, since giving up cigarettes is stressful for the body and dangerous for the child in the womb.
Is it true:
Each dose of poison delivered with another cigarette is even more stress for the fetus, which can lead to irreversible consequences.

Myth 2.
Smoking in the first trimester is not dangerous.
Is it true:
Exposure to tobacco smoke is most dangerous in the first months, when the formation of the most important organs occurs.

Myth 3.
Pregnant women can smoke electronic cigarettes.
Is it true:
The nicotine contained in the cartridge still enters the bloodstream, albeit in smaller quantities, so for pregnant women, e-cigarettes are just as harmful as regular ones.

Myth 4.
If you smoke light cigarettes or reduce the number of cigarettes per day, there will be almost no harm.
Is it true:
In this case, the harmful effects will decrease, but not by much: the smoker, who has had his nicotine dose limited, will try to “get it” with deeper puffs, which will increase the volume of smoke entering the lungs.

Myth 5.
If a friend smoked and gave birth to a strong baby, then nothing will happen to you.
Is it true:
Perhaps the friend was just very lucky, but with a high degree of probability, the health of her child was undermined by the intrauterine effects of nicotine and other poisons, and although this effect is not yet noticeable, sooner or later the problems will make themselves felt.

Consequences of smoking for mother and child

Smoking harms your unborn baby in several ways.

Firstly, tobacco smoke contains many toxic substances: nicotine, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, tars, a number of carcinogens, including diazobenzopyrine. Each of them poisons the fetus, reaching it through the mother’s blood.

Secondly, when smoking in the body the amount of B vitamins, vitamin C and folic acid. Their deficiency can provoke the development of defects in the central nervous system and lead to a number of other complications, including spontaneous abortion.

Long-term studies have revealed a number of sad patterns associated with smoking during pregnancy:

Smokers are more likely to give birth to low birth weight babies (up to 2.5 kg). Every third low birth weight newborn is from smoking mom. Even those who smoked little and rarely, on average, children are born 150-350 grams lighter, as well as smaller in height and with a smaller head and chest circumference.

The likelihood of miscarriage, premature birth and death of the newborn increases significantly. A pack of cigarettes a day increases this risk by 35%. The combination of two bad habits: smoking and drinking alcohol, multiplies it by 4.5 times. At least every tenth premature birth begin due to smoking.

Mothers who smoke have a 25-65% higher chance premature detachment placenta, by 25-90% (depending on the number of cigarettes) - placenta previa.

Smokers are 4 times more likely to give birth to children with chromosomal abnormalities, since poisons act on the embryo and at the gene level.

In “smoking” pregnant women, retardation in fetal development is diagnosed 3-4 times more often.

Children are 30% more likely to develop obesity or diabetes by age 16 if their mothers smoked while pregnant.

The consequences of smoking during pregnancy affect the child for at least another 6 years. WHO studies have shown that such children begin to read later, are lagging behind mentally and physical development Compared to their peers, they perform worse on intellectual and psychological tests.

The offspring of smoking parents are several times more likely to start smoking than those whose mother did not smoke at all or gave up cigarettes while pregnant.

The expectant mother is highly recommended not only to completely give up cigarettes herself, but also to ask smokers from her environment not to use them in her presence - the smoke inhaled during passive smoking can also have a negative impact on her situation.

If these data don't seem scary to you, consider that they only talk about the harm caused by smoking, while there are very few women who can boast excellent health and ideal conditions for gestation. All factors (health, past illnesses, general physical and moral preparation, environmental conditions, bad habits) develop and affect the development of the fetus. And if you strive to give birth to a living and healthy child, why put his life in danger?

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Every person has the right to choose in everything, but a fetus in the womb of a smoking woman does not have such a right; he is forced to smoke along with his future mother. Smoking during pregnancy is not only undesirable, but also contraindicated, but for some reason many women, despite the risk factors, continue to smoke while carrying a child.

A dangerous habit can lead to serious problems with fetal development, problematic pregnancy and childbirth, and deterioration in the health of a child who has been “smoking” since conception.

Consequences of smoking during pregnancy

Miscarriage and placenta previa

For nine months, mother and child are connected by the placenta, through which the fetus receives not only useful and nutrients, but also nicotine, tar, carcinogenic substances from cigarettes. The correct full development of the baby largely depends on the placenta. Women who smoke have a significantly increased risk pathological changes in the placenta, which can lead to serious damage to the health of the woman and child, including miscarriage.

Studies have confirmed that pregnant women who smoke have miscarriages various reasons occur twice as often as in other pregnant women. The reason for this phenomenon is that the placenta and fetus are in a state of oxygen starvation.

Oxygen starvation (hypoxia)

When a woman takes a puff on a cigarette, the embryo’s usual environment becomes cloudy in the form of a smoke screen, at which point it experiences difficulty breathing, begins to cough, and oxygen starvation occurs, which can provoke disturbances in the development of the brain and nervous system.

Nicotine addiction of a child

Doctors have proven that a woman who smokes during pregnancy has a child born nicotine dependent. It is very likely that such a child will become a smoker at a young age. Girls born to mothers who smoke are five times more likely to become drug addicts compared to children of non-smoking parents.

Underdeveloped reproductive system

The development of the child’s reproductive system directly depends on addiction mother. Boys especially suffer from this issue; nicotine has a detrimental effect on the quantity and quality of sperm and provokes cryptorchidism, a phenomenon when the testicles do not descend into the scrotum.

It becomes problematic for smoking parents to continue their family line with a male child. The Y chromosome, responsible for the male sex, is particularly susceptible negative influence environment. As a result, smoking couples are born two times less likely to have sons than people who are not addicted to cigarettes.

Low birth weight

Mother's nicotine addiction has a negative impact on the baby's weight. Such women often give birth to children with critically low body weight. The fact is that due to oxygen starvation and the constant intake of nicotine and carcinogenic substances into the blood and body, the embryo does not receive the necessary for its normal development nutrients, therefore there is a lag in development and weight gain.

Researchers' data show that among smoking women, children are born prematurely in every third case, while among non-smokers - in every tenth. Doctors give advice to quit addiction as quickly as possible. It is characteristic that the weight of the newborn was influenced not only by smoking during pregnancy itself, but also by smoking before conception.

Lung function is impaired

The functioning of a newborn's lungs is entirely dependent on the mother's addiction to nicotine. The fetus does not receive enough surfactant, which keeps the lungs expanded. Therefore, children of smoking mothers are more likely to be born with a predisposition to asthma and bronchitis with complications.

Pathologies and developmental defects

Smoking mothers have a high risk of having a child with congenital defect heart, with a defect in the development of the nasopharynx, strabismus. Since smoking by a pregnant woman leads to improper formation and development of the neural tube of the fetus, the babies of such women are more likely than others to be born with mental development abnormalities, with cleft lip or with a cleft palate.

Columbia University professors, based on research results, have drawn up a diagram that traces the relationship between maternal smoking and Down syndrome in the newborn.

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

A woman who smokes seriously exposes her child to sudden infant death syndrome. A connection has been established between the frequency of this phenomenon and maternal smoking. In women who smoke, SIDS is 19% more common during pregnancy than in other women, and after the birth of a child, this figure is 22% compared with non-smokers.

Spontaneous abortions and stillborn babies

British doctors have found that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of stillbirth by almost 30%. Particularly dangerous, in their opinion, is smoking in the second and third trimester of pregnancy. Norwegian doctors believe that women who smoke 15 or more cigarettes a day have a spontaneous abortion rate of about 15%. The risk of perinatal mortality in children, especially twins, increases significantly.

Smoking in early pregnancy

Some women, unaware of their pregnancy, continue to indulge themselves in cigarettes, and only after learning that very soon they will become mothers do they try to get rid of nicotine addiction. You need to quit smoking as quickly as possible. It is in the early stages of pregnancy that the fetus is especially susceptible to the negative influence of harmful substances coming from cigarettes. By taking another puff, you saturate your embryo with tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, benzopyrene.

During the first month of pregnancy, the brain, heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys of the embryo are at the embryonic stage. It is during this period that beneficial nutrients, normal balanced diet. Instead, the unborn child’s body receives poisons that poison it from the inside, causing defects and pathologies in the development of internal organs.

In the second month of pregnancy, the intestines, pancreas, organs of hearing, vision and smell are formed, the vocal apparatus and genitals are formed. Therefore, you should not entertain the illusion that now the embryo is no larger than a pea, and it will not be affected by several cigarettes smoked a day. Another cigarette can be fatal and lead to serious violations, for example, in the development of legs or arms. It is the children of smoking mothers who are most often born with pathologies of the limbs.

Sometimes ladies deceive themselves by switching to “light” cigarettes during pregnancy. Yes, the nicotine and tar content in such cigarettes is lower, but at the same time the smoker takes deeper puffs to get the pleasure he needs. It makes no difference to the fetus what kind of cigarettes he smokes in the womb; he is already doomed to become a person dependent on nicotine.

Passive smoking

Many women who smoke find it quite difficult to quit. bad habit even after pregnancy. But getting your spouse and other household members to get rid of nicotine addiction is even more difficult. It is not only the mother’s smoking for nine months that is dangerous for the unborn child, but also the passive smoking to which she is exposed.

Researchers say smokers do more harm when they're nearby standing people, and not to yourself. Smoking man inhales dangerous substances through a cigarette filter, so only about 20% of the poisons enter his body, while the remaining 80% are dissipated in the air and inhaled passive smokers without any filter.

It has been proven that passive smoking during pregnancy significantly increases the risk of developing various pathologies The child has. Thus, in women who smoke passively, premature births, miscarriages, and intrauterine fetal deaths occur more often than others. A child is born with developmental delays and a tendency to organ diseases respiratory system, diabetes mellitus, heart disease, leukemia and other diseases. Risk of giving birth dead child with passive smoking increases by 22%.

Staying for an hour in indoors in a smoking company, the expectant mother receives so much harmful substances, how much she herself would receive by smoking one cigarette. All these factors should cause all family members to immediately stop smoking in order to enable the new member to be healthy in the future.

Statistics

  • One in four women continues to smoke during pregnancy;
  • In 30% of cases, children born to smoking parents develop diabetes mellitus by the age of 16;
  • In women who smoke 20 or more cigarettes a day, the rate of miscarriages occurs one and a half times more often than in non-smoking pregnant women. And the combination of smoking and drinking alcohol increases this figure by 4.5 times;
  • Boys of smoking mothers in the future have problems with potency, the size of their testicles is smaller than normal, and the number of sperm in semen is 20% lower than in children of non-smoking parents;
  • The rate of stillbirths among pregnant women who smoke is 30% higher than among other women;
  • In the vast majority of cases, children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy begin to smoke in early age and maintain this habit throughout their lives;
  • Premature birth in 15% of cases is the result of a woman's smoking;
  • A third of low birth weight newborns are born to women who smoke;
  • UK scientists have found that children who “smoked in utero” are on average 1.5 cm shorter than their peers, and they are also inferior in intellectual development. Such children learn to read and write worse than others;
  • In Finland, it was found that children from smoking families are more often hospitalized with various diseases. They are especially susceptible to the development of pneumonia, asthma, and bronchitis;
  • Pregnant women who smoke are more likely to experience toxicosis in the second half of pregnancy;
  • Children of smoking mothers are twice as likely as other children to suffer from sleep disorders, increased excitability, hyperactivity and irritability. IN adolescence Such children are prone to depression and mental disorders, up to suicidal tendencies. ­­­