Smoking during pregnancy

Like drinking too much alcohol or doing drugs, smoking is also very harmful to your health. It can cause serious health conditions including cancer, heart disease, stroke and gum disease. It can also cause eye diseases that can lead to blindness. Smoking can make it harder for a woman to get pregnant.

How does smoking harm your pregnancy?Not only is smoking harmful to you, it's also harmful to your baby during pregnancy. When you smoke during pregnancy, your baby is exposed to dangerous chemicals like nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar. These chemicals can lessen the amount of oxygen that your baby gets. Oxygen is very important for helping your baby grow healthy. Smoking can also damage your baby's lungs.

Women who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have:

• An ectopic pregnancy
• Vaginal bleeding
• Placental abruption (placenta peels away, partially or almost completely, from the uterine wall before delivery)
• Placenta previa (a low-lying placenta that covers part or all of the opening of the uterus)
• A stillbirth

Does smoking during pregnancy harm your baby?

Yes. Babies born to women who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to be born:

• With birth defects such as cleft lip or palate
• Prematurely
• At low birthweight
• Underweight for the number of weeks of pregnancy

Babies born prematurely and at low birthweight are at risk of other serious health problems, including lifelong disabilities (such as , intellectual disabilities and learning problems), and in some cases, death.

What is secondhand smoke?Breathing in someone else's smoke is also harmful. Secondhand smoke during pregnancy can cause a baby to be born at low birthweight. Secondhand smoke is also dangerous to young children. Babies exposed to secondhand smoke:

• Are more likely to die from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)
• Are at greater risk for asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections, respiratory symptoms
• May experience slow lung growth

What is thirdhand smoke?

New research shows that thirdhand smoke is another health hazard. Thirdhand smoke is made up of the toxic gases and particles left behind from cigarette or cigar smoking. These toxic remains, which include lead, arsenic and carbon monoxide, cling to things like clothes, hair, couches and carpets well after the smoke from a cigarette or cigar has cleared the room. That’s why you often can tell a smoker by the smell of cigarettes or cigars that linger on his clothing or in his home or car. Things like cracking the car window down while you smoke or smoking in another room aren’t enough to keep others away from the harm caused by cigarettes or cigars.

Breathing in these toxins at an early age (babies and young children) may have devastating health problems like asthma and other breathing issues, learning disorders and cancer. It's important that expecting moms and their children do their best to keep away from places where people smoke.

To read more of the original article please click on the link: http://www.marchofdimes.com/pregnancy/smoking-during-pregnancy.aspx