Effects of Smoking on the Fetus

Most women also realize that smoking is bad during pregnancy. Unfortunately, it can be a very hard habit to give up, even for the best-intentioned parent. Smoking is not as detrimental to fetal brain development as heavy alcohol drinking, but it acts on many other organ systems. like the heart and lungs, that compromise the baby's health in a lasting way. Babies born to heavy smokers are substantially smaller than babies born to nonsmokers, averaging about half a pound lighter. In fact, smoking is one of the leading preventable causes of low birth weight, since 25 percent of women are estimated to smoke during their pregnancy. (These babies are born smaller, regardless of the amount of weight the mother gained during pregnancy, so their low birth weight is not due simply to the possibility that their mothers ate less than nonsmokers.) Smoking also increases the risk of miscarriage and premature birth caused by problems with the placenta. Both prematurity and low birth weight increase a child's chances of mental or neurological impairment.

When a pregnant mother smokes a cigarette, nicotine rushes into the fetal circulation and dramatically alters the baby's breathing movements. with periods of apnea (cessation of breathing) alternating with periods of extra-rapid breathing. Babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy have a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), which may be related to this altered breathing pattern in utero.

Several long-term studies of children bom to mothers who smoked during pregnancy have suggested that their brain development and function are compromised. In various reports, prenatal smoking has been linked to deficiencies in newborn sucking ability, in language and motor skills in one- and two-year-olds, in hyperactivity and auditory attention in four-to-seven-year-olds, and in learning ability in seven-to-eleven-year-olds. Two other studies also link it to attention-deficit hyperactivity in six-to-seventeen-year-old boys and to mental retardation of otherwise unknown cause. Some of these results are controversial and may be complicated by the fact that, on average. smokers tend to consume more alcohol and to be of lower socioeconomic status than nonsmokers. Overall, however, the evidence to date does suggest that heavy smoking during pregnancy has long-term effects on cognitive abilities that are probably due to compromised brain development in the womb.

Notes:

The evidence suggests that smoking has longterm cognitive effects on children due to compromised brain development in the womb.

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 What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Eliot , Lise (2000-10-03), What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, Bantam, Retrieved on 2011-07-18
Folksonomies: parenting babies development infants physiology