Smoking during pregnancy

Smoking has a negative impact on your health. Many people know about this, but this does not stop them from continuing to smoke. But when a woman finds out that she is pregnant, the attitude towards this addiction, in most cases, changes dramatically, since it is no longer only about the woman herself, but also about her child.

Smoking during pregnancy: harm

Smoking significantly affects the condition of the pregnant woman and the child who is still in the womb. For 99% of the fair sex who smoke, pregnancy occurs with complications, as the baby suffers from intoxication. In essence, the child is a passive smoker. If a woman tries to reduce the number of cigarettes she smokes, the baby, like his mother, begins to experience “nicotine hunger.” And the consequences may be different. They depend on the period during which the woman smoked.

For example, children of mothers who could not do without cigarettes throughout pregnancy become irritable after birth and often cry. Sometimes it even happens that immediately after the first breath, the baby begins to choke and turn blue. This is another manifestation of nicotine hunger.

Children who suffered from intoxication in the womb are often developmentally delayed, born prematurely, and also have problems with the respiratory tract. Poisoning received in the womb makes itself felt for a long time, since nicotine affects brain cells. Therefore, the baby may sleep poorly and be capricious for no particular reason.

Smoking in early pregnancy

Smoking in the early stages of pregnancy, when the baby has just been conceived, is especially dangerous. At this stage, the placenta has not yet fully formed and, accordingly, the child has no protection at all from nicotine, carcinogens, radioactive elements, fumes, etc. According to research, the amount of harmful substances in the blood of an embryo is much higher than even that of the mother.

Smoking in the early stages is fraught with the following consequences:

• the appearance of spasms in the vessels of the placenta, which provoke a lack of oxygen and cell nutrition;
• placental rupture;
• childhood leukemia may develop;
• the risk of developing intrauterine pathologies increases;
• Most pregnant women who smoke give birth to premature babies.

Statistics show that it is precisely those children whose mothers smoked (or drank) during pregnancy who suffer from such anomalies as “cleft lip”, stuttering, strabismus, etc.

It is in the first trimester of pregnancy that a mother causes the greatest harm to her baby if she continues to smoke. Even if, after a woman found out about her interesting situation, she quit this habit, the consequences of smoking will still be noticeable.

If the expectant mother continues to smoke in the next 2 trimesters, the placenta may mature prematurely, so the baby will be born premature.

How to quit smoking during pregnancy

Although many are of the opinion that cigarettes are a drug, quitting this addiction is quite possible. The most difficult period is the first 24 hours. The main thing is not to give in to temptation. It is necessary to try to reduce communication with people who smoke, think more about pregnancy and the health of the unborn baby.

Pregnant women are not recommended to quit smoking abruptly. It is advisable to extend the fight against smoking over 2-3 weeks, gradually reducing the number of cigarettes per day. In the first week you should smoke half as much, then switch to lighter cigarettes.

In the second week, you need to further reduce the number of cigarettes consumed by 2 times, and also try not to finish smoking them. Just a few puffs will satisfy your nicotine hunger, so there is no need to smoke until the end.

The third week should finally help you forget about nicotine. If the craving for cigarettes is very strong, your heart is beating quickly, your head is dizzy, a couple of puffs will help get rid of the signs of nicotine deficiency. But you can’t smoke a cigarette until the end. It is necessary to minimize the amount of nicotine entering the body.

If you follow simple rules, it will be easier for a pregnant woman to quit smoking without harming the baby.