Smoking While Pregnant Essay

A woman who smokes while pregnant is at an incremented risk of experiencing a wide range of birth defects with her newborn child, and she is exposing her pregnancy to many serious risks. Impediments within the pregnancy, caused by the chemicals found in cigarettes, may result in premature labor, miscarriage, or ectopic pregnancy. Smoking while pregnant is precarious because when an expectant mother smokes a cigarette, she imperils the baby to an array of deleterious chemical components. Babies whose mothers smoke during their pregnancies are being put in jeopardy of having a low birth weight, breathing difficulties, and numerous malformations due to the effect chemicals have on them. Tobacco, being the most prevalent substance used in this period, puts innumerable amounts of fetuses and newborns in grave peril. Smoking cigarettes cause fetal malformations, and it causes harmful effects on the newborn baby at birth or later in life. Cigarette smoke contains over four-thousand hazardous chemicals; forty-three of these chemicals are kenned carcinogenic compounds. For instance, a cigarette contains chemicals such as carbon monoxide and …show more content…
A baby that is born from a smoking mother is proven to be born at a lower birth weight than an average baby. Typically, the baby is born about one-hundred and fifty to two-hundred grams less. These babies, affected by cigarettes and their smoke, have up to three times the risk of SIDS, which stands for sudden infant death syndrome. After birth, smoking can affect the milk production of a mother, and the chemicals will perpetuate to pass on to the baby through breastfeeding. Later in life, a child affected by chemicals found in cigarette smoke may be more liable to develop asthma or high blood pressure. Overall, when a mother makes the decision to smoke throughout her pregnancy or while nursing, she is making a lasting, negative effect on her