Pregnancy and smoking

Pregnancy and smoking
Pregnancy is about creating a new life, but ultimately it is the mother's judgement whether or not to continue smoking for the sake of her unborn child. Pregnancy can be a powerful impetus to give up smoking, because you're making this choice on behalf of your unborn child who is completely dependent on the mother.
Pre-pregnancy
Both female and male smokers have lower fertility levels, while adults who were born to mothers who smoked have less chance of becoming a parent themselves. Smoking also reduces the probabilities of IVF succeeding.
It's thought nicotine reduces a woman's fertility by affecting the production of hormones that are necessary for pregnancy. Smoking also impedes the transportation of the egg through the Fallopian tubes to the womb.
Male smokers tend to have a sperm count that is 15 per cent lower than that of non-smokers. Smoking can also reduce the amount of semen, harm the motility of sperm, i.e. their ability to move around and affect their shape.
Smoking can also affect the blood vessels that supply the penis, causing erection complications.
Quitting smoking will increase one’s ability to conceive and success with IVF.
Smoking in pregnancy
It is never too late to stop smoking. Every cigarette you decide not to smoke will help your and baby's health.
Much of the damage caused by smoking can be reversed because your body is a living organism that has the ability to heal itself.
Women who stopped smoking at the halfway point in their pregnancy gave birth to babies with the same average weight as women who had not smoked at all during pregnancy.
You may be tempted just to cut down, but many smokers find they inhale more deeply when smoking fewer cigarettes. So though the number of cigarettes decreases, the intake of damaging substances doesn't because residues are concentrated towards the butt.
Other studies show that even moderate cigarette smoking is damaging to the foetus, making quitting the most important thing you can do to improve your and baby's health.
A baby in the womb gets everything from its mother. Nutrients and oxygen come via the placenta and umbilical cord. Smoking not only exposes the foetus to toxins in tobacco smoke, but it also damages placental function.
When a person smokes, some of the oxygen in their blood is substituted by carbon monoxide. Likewise, if a pregnant woman smokes, her blood and consequently her child's blood will comprise less oxygen than usual. This can cause the foetal heart rate to rise as baby struggles to get adequate oxygen from mother.
Numerous poisonous substances in tobacco smoke change the blood's ability to work in a healthy and normal manner. This can affect the placenta that feeds the baby.
Smoking harms even unborn baby
Babies born to mothers who smoke are supposed to have the following symptoms:
• Likely to be born prematurely with a low birth weight. The more the mother smokes, the less the child weighs proportionately.
• Have organs that are smaller on average than babies born to non-smokers.
• Have poorer lung function.
• Are twice as likely to die from cot death. There seems to be a direct link between cot death and parents smoking.
• Are ill more frequently. Babies born to women who smoked 15 cigarettes or more a day during pregnancy are taken into hospital twice as often during the first eight months of life.
• Get painful diseases such as inflammation of the middle ear and asthmatic bronchitis more frequently in early childhood.
Further, pregnant women who smoke increase their risk of early miscarriage.
In later pregnancy, smoking mothers are at increased risk of the baby's placenta coming away from the womb before the baby is born (placental abruption). This may cause the baby to be born prematurely, starve of oxygen, or even to die in the womb (stillborn).
How to stop smoking
One can get support and advice about stopping smoking from your midwife, gynaecologist. Evidence shows that counselling by qualified health specialists can be twofold effective to abandon smoking for pregnant women.
Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) should not preferably be used by pregnant women as directed by physician to stop smoking. But for the heavy smokers, who are unable to give up using willpower alone, NRT will deliver less nicotine than cigarettes and none of the other disease-causing agents, eg tar. Women should only use NRT while pregnancy only after carefully discussing all the risks and benefits with their consultant.