Smoking During Pregnancy Essays

Smoking During Pregnancy Essays Smoking During Pregnancy Essay Smoking During Pregnancy Essay A pregnant women and her unborn baby are sensitive to the effects of our environment, this include drugs, disease and stress. One of the legal drugs that exist is nicotine. Through smoking, nicotine is readily absorbed from tobacco smoke in the mouth, upper respiratory tract and lungs into the blood stream in which they are carried to all parts of the body (Fried Oxorn 1980, p. 26). Nicotine, carbon monoxide and other toxic substance of tobacco smoke is dangerous during pregnancy. Smoking during pregnancy is one of the bad habits that can bring complications to the baby.During the pregnancy there are potential problems associated with smoking such as increased the chances of miscarriage and stillbirth, having high risk premature baby and low birth weight infants. According to US Department Health and Human Services 1980 study (cited in Wakefield Wilson 1988, p. 5) that aside from birth weight, the risk of spontaneous abortion, fetal death and neonatal death rises directly with incr easing levels of maternal smoking during pregnancy. It is also know the increased risk of abruption placentae, placenta previa and bleeding early in pregnancy or late pregnancy is also related to smoking.In addition, there is evidence that smoking have long term effects to the child such as reduced physical growth, slightly poor performance on intelligence test, and some behavioural disorders in the child of school age (Fried Oxon 1980, p. 111). If the pregnancy is planned it is important to a mother-to-be to know how harmful smoking to the foetus is. There are studies that the women do not have the clear perception of the effects that smoking might have on the foetus and the risks involved.The best way to minimize the risk and complications of smoking is through quitting smoking cigarettes before becoming pregnant. However, if smoking cannot be given up entirely the pregnant women should at least decrease the amount of cigarettes smoked to decrease the severity of effects to the f oetus. Quitting smoking is beneficial to the mother-to-be and to the baby. Activities such as sports, exercise and listening music can divert the mind away from smoking. There are no harm of trying to quit smoking but if this will not working there are support strategies to help quitting effectively.