The Effects Of Prenatal Tobacco Exposure On An Infant 's Regulatory Processes During The First Month Of Their Lives

Pregnancy is a joyful time for most families because that means the mother is bringing a new member into the world who will be welcomed into the family. A mother holding her newborn healthy baby in her arms for the first time makes her feel a sense of pride. This is because she has followed all of her doctor’s instructions and listened to his advice on how to keep herself healthy, and how to deliver a healthy baby after her nine months are up. But what if the new mom to be did not listen to the doctor’s advice? What if she decided to smoke during her pregnancy because she assumed it would not hurt the baby? What health problems or birth defects would the baby be challenged with when it was born? Women who smoke during their pregnancies on

Smoking during the first trimester of pregnancy could lead to the placenta not developing fully. As the placenta carries oxygen and blood to the foetus this may impair growth and link to low birth weights. Babies born to smoking mothers are 30% more likely to have a premature baby which could lead to respiratory distress, problems feeding and they could have difficulty regulating their body temperature. Babies undergo withdrawal like systems and tend to be more jittery and harder to settle. Babies being brought up in a smoking household are at increased risk of cot death and may go on to develop asthma during childhood.

Your baby may be affected by nicotine and toxic substances in your breast milk, secondhand smoke, and thirdhand smoke.

          First of all, cigarettes are bad for a regular person. Cigarette smoking by the mother during pregnancy has been consistently shown in studies as a risk factor for SIDS. A study measuring the level of tobacco smoke exposure in SIDS victims to a control group of infants that had died of other causes. Relying on the continue concentration taken from the pericardial fluid, researchers found that the SIDS victims were more likely to have high the concentrations of cotinine in the fluid than the control infants. Cotinine is produced as the liver cleanses the nicotine from the blood and metabolizes it. Steps are being took to inform people about the

Overall, of 103830 records 82534 mothers’ data were analyzed that were obtained from the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Certificate of Live Birth. Descriptive results of maternal and birth characteristics are shown in Table 1. Approximately, 57% of the mothers were white, 33% black, 7% Asian, and 3.6% other ethnicities, respectively. 29% of the maternal age at delivery was between 20-24 years old, 22% was between 25-29 years old, 19% was between 30-34 years old, 14% was between 19 years and younger, 11% was between 35-39 years old, and 4% was between 40 years and older, respectively. The number of LBW babies (< 2500 g) among mothers who smoked and non-smoked were 1359 (1.6%) and 81144 (98.3%), respectively. 16 % of mothers who smoked (n=5544) gave low birth weight babies. 5.4% of low birth weight babies had mothers smoked between 10-14 cigarettes per day.

According to the Center for Disease Control, (CDC) there are toxic chemicals in cigarettes that “affect the brain in ways that interfere with its regulation of infants' breathing” (CDC, 2010). Autopsy reports also show “higher concentrations of nicotine in their lungs and higher levels of cotinine (a biological marker for secondhand smoke exposure) than infants who die from other causes” (CDC, 2010).

The study also allowed the researcher to see the knowledge of women concerning risk factors to sudden infant death syndrome. The study targeted sixty-one women, ages twenty-four to forty-seven. Among these women were thirty-five nurses, and the rest of the twenty-six women were those who had no medical education or background. The average percentage of women who smoke was twenty-five percent, but including the nurses caused the percentage to go up to thirty percent. The prevalence of smoking during pregnancy turned out to be six percent. There was high environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure to infants that were identified among these women. The outcome of this case study was unsatisfactory, showing that the targeted women, including nurses, did not have knowledge of the risk factors of sudden infant death syndrome ("[Cigarette Smoke as a Risk Factor of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)--Assessment of Knowledge and Behavior of

Exposure to second hand smoke, also called involuntary smoking, occurs when non-smokers breathe in the cigarette smoke from others around them. Second hand smoke is harmful to both pregnant women and infants (NTP). Paternal smoking reduces birth weight by about 2 oz. (Berger 115). After birth, babies exposed to cigarette smoke may experience more colds, lung problems, and even ear infections.

Cigarette smoking increases a wide range of issues, with prematurity (20-30%) and low birth weight (which doubles) being the most probable. The first trimester is considered a critical time for growth as the fetus is beginning to develop organs. If a woman smokes only in her trimester and then quits, she has put her fetus at risk of developing a birth defect. Also, the second and third trimesters are important as well due to the fact that neurological defects result if a woman is smoking

Among the many environmental factors that can affect infant learning, prenatal cigarette exposure has proven to be a topic of interest in behavioral teratology due to the large number of health effects it is associated with. Some of the health effects of prenatal cigarette exposure include: lower birth weight, smaller head circumference, lower IQ, attention dysfunction, hyperactivity and other conduct problems, as well as school failure (Mezzacappa, E., 2011, p. 881-891). There are some human studies that investigate the cognitive deficits related to prenatal cigarette exposure which include: auditory, visual attention, and working memory issues.

With the knowledge that smoking causes approximately one in every five deaths in the United States each year, the question still remains of why people still smoke. This addiction is harmful to all those who encounter the smoke, including the unborn child who hasn’t even opened his eyes yet. Research shows that many of the components of nicotine have the ability to cross the placenta and intern result in growth and neurodevelopment problems during childhood and later on in life. There is limited research regarding the visional difficulties of children whose mother’s were exposed to smoke during pregnancy. The review article, “Smoking during pregnancy and vision difficulties in children:

Adults who inhale secondhand smoke are prone to middle ear disease, respiratory symptoms, impaired lung function, lower respiratory illness, nasal irritation, lung cancer, coronary heart disease, and stroke (The Health Consequences of Smoking). Secondhand smoke damage the brain of infants, which hamper the breathing for the newborn. Therefore, infants who are exposed to secondhand smoke have a higher chance off fatality due Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Children with tobacco using parents are found to have less lung growth and are more prone to bronchitis, pneumonia, wheezing, coughing, asthma attacks, and ear infections (Heath Effect of Secondhand Smoke). Both the mother and unborn child are at risk when exposed to secondhand smoke. Risk factors include miscarriage, low birth weight, early birth, learning or behavioral deficiencies in her child, and, once again, SIDS (Secondhand Smoke and

When oxygenation is altered, such as in asthma, the body’s tissues and organs are at risk for not receiving adequate oxygen. In asthma, the airways are in a constant state of inflammation and triggers cause further inflammation that leads to airway swelling and narrowing (Trakalo, 2015). Hypoxemia can result from an acute asthma attack when adequate oxygen is not delivered to the blood (Trakalo, 2015). Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics on tobacco use and pregnancy (n.d.), 10% of pregnant women say they smoked in the last 3 months of pregnancy.  Smoking during pregnancy not only puts the mom at risk for complications but can also increase the child’s risk of developing certain diseases later in life ("Tobacco use and pregnancy," n.d.). To decrease the incidence of childhood asthma, it is critical to study the relationship between maternal smoking during pregnancy and the child’s development of asthma later in life. Some research has concluded that in utero and prenatal secondhand smoke exposure is directly associated with an increased risk of a child developing asthma later in life up to adolescence (Thacher et al., 2014). It is essential to further study within the population of pregnant mothers (P), does a mother who smokes during pregnancy versus a mother who does not smoke during pregnancy put a child at greater risk for

The objective of this study is to assess the risk factors such as socio-economic factors, demographic factors, maternal characteristics, negative effects on babies, and bring awareness of how tobacco use can affect low birth weight, respiratory complications, preterm birth , the development, the control over their emotions/behaviors and learning abilities, and overall health of the pregnancy and child in question.

Smoking while pregnant is a known teratogen. For those who don’t know, a teratogen is an agent or factor that causes malformation of an embryo. Smoking is very bad for a baby’s health before and after your baby is born. Many people don’t understand the importance of this, nor do they understand that not only does an unborn child get the smoke, but all the chemicals in a cigarette as well. Cigarettes contain more than 4,000 chemicals, like nicotine, cyanide, lead, carbon monoxide, and tar. Not to mention at least 60 cancer causing chemicals. 20-30% of low birth weight babies, 14% premature labors, and 10% of infant deaths are caused from smoking during pregnancy according to American Lung Association. Smoking increases the risk of pregnancy complications at any and every stage of a pregnancy. Second hand and third hand smoke is just as bad if not worse for an unborn child and yourself as first hand smoke is.