Pregnant women are often recommended not to smoke, but it is a fact that secondhand smoke also has a negative effect on the brain development of newborns.
Expectant mothers who smoke or inhale secondhand smoke put their children in danger for lobesity, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and earning difficulties. The researchers also discovered that babies who have been exposed to nicotine in smoke have impaired physiological, motor, sensory, and attention responses in the first two to three days of life. Secondhand smoke can be almost as dangerous to a baby as having a mother who smokes, at least when mentioning stillbirths and birth defects.
Secondhand smoke contains over 4000 chemicals including more than 40 cancer causing agents and 200 known poisons. These can enter the pregnant mother and influence on her baby.The range for smoking women and birth defects is between 10 – 34%, and for pregnant women who are around smokers, 13%. Babies exposed to passive smoke were more probably to be born with major deformities of the feet, testes, or not have a brain.
When a pregnant woman is exposed to secondhand smoke, the nicotine she breath in is transferred to her unborn baby.
How Does Secondhand Smoke Affect Aregnant Woman?
Women who smoke or are exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy:
• have a higher rate of miscarriges and stillbirths
• have an increased risk of low birthweight infants
• have children with greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome
• have children born with decreased lung function
How Does Smoking Affect The Unborn Baby?
• The chemicals from cigarette smoke get into your unborn baby’s blood so your unborn baby gets 25% less oxygen, does not grow the right way and is less healthy.
• The placenta ties mom and baby – food and oxygen go from Mom’s blood to baby through the placenta. Nicotine can enter the placenta thereby reducing blood flow to the fetus and impacting on the fetal cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal system and central nervous system.
• Every time you breath cigarettes smoke, your baby gets less food and oxygen.
• Babies of secondhand smokers are at the high risk to be born prematurely.
• Babies of secondhand smokers do not grow as well as they could due to the carbon monoxide. This leads to a baby with light birth weight.