How does smoking affect pregnancy?

The factor that represents perhaps the greatest danger to the health of a child developing in the womb is smoking. This is due to the fact that during pregnancy, a large number of other harmful substances, including carbon monoxide and tar, enter the body of the expectant mother at the same time as nicotine.

Everyone knows about the dangers of smoking. But according to statistics, the number of women who have this bad habit does not decrease, but on the contrary increases, while the age at which girls start to smoke decreases. What should a pregnant woman do if she suffers from nicotine addiction? In this case there can be no compromise solutions - it is necessary to give up the harmful habit in the very near future. Of course, every person has the right to independently make such decisions and be responsible for his health and for his unborn child.However, it is still necessary to weigh everything carefully, having learned what effect smoking has on pregnancy. This information should help the future mother to set priorities correctly and easily take the first step into a new life, forgetting about the harmful habit.

What is the impact of smoking on pregnancy?

Scientists in many countries have conducted a huge amount of research aimed at determining the effects of harmful habits on the development of pregnancy and the formation of the fetus in the womb. The results of each of them confirmed that smoking has a negative effect of nicotine on the pregnant woman and her offspring: the future mother's body suffers from suffering, in which a global restructuring takes place already, the correct intrauterine formation of the fetus is threatened, the risk of deviations in the infant increases.

At that moment, when the expectant mother takes a puff of nicotine, the baby is enveloped in a cloud of smoke, which causes a spasm of blood vessels, which can cause the risk of intrauterine hypoxia. Under the influence of cigarettes, the placenta becomes thinner, becomes round, increases the likelihood of its detachment.Because of the pernicious habit, hemoglobin in the body of a woman loses its function, which is to deliver oxygen to the uterus and the fetus growing in it. As a result, the uterus is subjected to arterial spasm, leading to impaired placental function, resulting in the fetus experiencing oxygen starvation.

With each cigarette you smoke, a pregnant woman is getting closer to the dangerous, sometimes irreparable consequences, which include the following:

1. Increase the likelihood of premature abortion.
2. The birth of a premature baby with serious health problems.
3. Increased risk of fetal death.
4. Low birth weight of the child, because of what his chances of proper development will be significantly reduced.
5. The development of the fetus of various abnormalities.
6. The occurrence of pre-eclampsia is a phenomenon that poses a threat to the life of a woman and a child (a pregnant woman develops severe edema, protein is detected in urine analysis, a sharp increase in pressure occurs).
7. Even if, immediately after the birth of the child, the mother who smokes, it seems that he has no pathologies, over time, the effects of addiction to nicotine may appear - mental and social disorders.

Some mothers believe that if they do not smoke a whole cigarette and begin to take a small amount of puffs per day, this will not harm the health of the child. This opinion is wrong. The consequences of the harmful habits of a pregnant woman will surely make themselves known, even if the expectant mother herself does not feel this at the moment. These consequences include the following:

• being pregnant women who smoke is worse than those who lead a healthy lifestyle;
• nicotine can provoke the occurrence of varicose veins or aggravation of it;
• possible manifestations such as disorders of the chair, dizziness;
• toxicosis in the first trimester and preeclampsia in the latter.

Harmful substances contained in cigarettes, destroy vitamin C in the body of a pregnant woman. Lack of this element can lead to metabolic disorders, deterioration of immunity, lack of protein digestion, psycho-emotional disorders.

Smoking while carrying a child jeopardizes its successful development after birth. Smoking mother contributes to the poisoning of the child in her womb.Thus, the fetus becomes a victim of passive smoking, which increases the likelihood of acquiring harmful habits in the future. In children whose mothers could not give up cigarettes during pregnancy, often the first encounter with nicotine and alcohol occurs very early. The little ones, still in the womb, acquire nicotine addiction, they are more naughty, sleep worse, can not concentrate their attention at an older age, some of them suffer from asthma attacks.

In addition, according to the results of recent clinical studies, it became clear that carcinogens that enter a pregnant woman with cigarette smoke have a negative impact on the reproductive health of the unborn child. This means that babies born when they grow up can suffer from infertility: mothers who smoked during pregnancy have a significantly reduced supply of eggs, while boys are at risk of developing impotence.

How smoking affects pregnancy at different times

No matter how long the gestation of a smoking woman is, it will still harm her offspring in any way. The difference is only in what kind of internal organ of the crumb will undergo more than others.

First trimester smoking
When a woman with nicotine addiction learns about her pregnancy, she begins to worry that the addiction has already harmed her child. In such a situation, you can slightly calm the expectant mother. The first week after fertilization of the egg is neutral, at this time there is not yet a strong link between the embryo and the maternal organism. At the moment, its development is carried out at the expense of its own resources. Immersion of the embryo in the endometrium occurs at the beginning of the second week, at which time the woman begins to suspect that she is pregnant.

The satisfaction of a bad habit does not allow pregnancy to develop normally, the organs of the baby are laid down, healthy cells are replaced by the sick.

In particularly difficult situations, the toxic substances contained in cigarettes cause such a strong distortion of the fetal bone marrow structure that when a child is born, he needs to be transplanted.

From the foregoing, it becomes clear that smoking in the first trimester of pregnancy poses the greatest threat to the health of the child, since it is at this time that the vital systems of the baby are laid.

Oxygen starvation of the fetus, violation of blood flow in the vessels of the placenta, premature termination of pregnancy, increase the risk of bleeding - this is not all complications that smoking during pregnancy can lead to.

At the moment, there is an increase in the number of cases in which mothers who have not abandoned their bad habit give birth to a child with congenital malformations.

Nicotine in the last months of pregnancy
Satisfaction of addictions closer to the end of pregnancy leads to serious consequences: bleeding from the uterus, premature birth. The fetus also nicotine addiction of the mother brings tremendous harm. In this case, children may experience inadequate brain development, low body weight and sudden death shortly after birth.

The last month of pregnancy is a very important period, when both the mother's body and the fetus themselves prepare for the main event - the birth.For a week, the baby gets heavy by about 250 grams and eventually falls into the pelvis. The future mother more often feels not long and not painful contractions, she starts breathing easily and easily again. But not in the case when she did not give up smoking. A woman who was unable to get rid of her addiction to the end of pregnancy can face many complications:

• the placenta can completely or partially exfoliate, resulting in bleeding from the uterus;
• pressure increases significantly;
• late toxicosis appears;
• childbirth begins before the due time;
• increased risk of stillbirth;
• born premature baby can be weak and painful.

• mental disorders;
• CNS pathology;
• Down syndrome;
• strabismus;
• inguinal hernia;
• myocardial disease;
• nasopharyngeal diseases.

All experts are of the same opinion - it is necessary to stop smoking.When the future mother still makes this right step, she brings enormous health benefits to her own child, even if she did it in the last months of pregnancy.

Video: smoking during pregnancy