Question: Ivan, how can smoking harm a pregnant mother and her baby?
Answer: Unfortunately, smoking is a socially acceptable and common habit. There are many active smokers here. An important part is people of reproductive age. Usually, when a smoking couple can't have a child, it doesn't even occur to them that it could be due to their nicotine addiction. So what is the relationship between childbirth and smoking? Note that nicotine affects the health of men and women differently.
Smoking reduces women's chances of getting pregnant by 40%. There are more than 100 dangerous compounds in tobacco smoke. Nicotine, carbon dioxide and cyanide damage the condition of eggs, leading to premature aging or their loss. The concentration of nicotine in the endometrium is many times higher than its concentration in the blood. What causes the development of inflammation and swelling.
Under the influence of tobacco smoke, the formation of hormones is disturbed. Due to the lack of certain hormones, there is no abortion, no pregnancy or impossibility of conception.
In women addicted to nicotine, an excess of free radicals can be seen, which leads to a disorder in the genetic structure of the egg. Therefore, the chance of conceiving a child with congenital pathologies or with an incorrect set of chromosomes in such women is very high. In active smokers, pregnancy often occurs with complications.
In addition, regular use of nicotine affects the absorption of micro and macro elements that the body needs for proper functioning.
What can smoking harm the unborn child during pregnancy?
As I mentioned above, due to the use of nicotine, there is a lack of vitamins and minerals. And they play an important role in the proper growth and development of the child.
Smoking leads to vasoconstriction. This is very dangerous because it causes fetal hypoxia. Oxygen starvation, in turn, can cause premature birth, intrauterine death of the fetus or the child can be born with a low weight.
Pregnant women who smoke often give birth to children with heart disease, anomalies of physical or mental development. The reason is nicotine and other toxic substances in cigarette smoke.
Toxic substances have a negative effect on the male reproductive system. Smokers reduce the quality and quantity of seminal fluid as well as sperm activity. Smoking leads to impotence.
As in women, smoking causes cell oxidation in the male body. As a result, the egg is fertilized by a sperm with damaged DNA.
A big misconception is that secondhand smoke is safe. It is not true! Nicotine enters the respiratory organs with smoke in the same amount in active and passive smokers.
To reduce the effects of nicotine use, restore blood circulation, remove toxins from the body, improve metabolism and conceive a healthy child, it is better for both partners to stop smoking a year before the planned pregnancy.
Getting pregnant and giving birth to a healthy baby depends on the lifestyle of the parents!
Nicotine addiction develops quickly and is very permanent. Quitting smoking on your own can be very difficult. That's why I recommend going through an online marathon called "Unta sa Pangangaryo". This is an online psychological help program for people who have decided to get rid of addiction once and for all, but do not know how and where to start.