carolcoxclassroom: Stop the Smoke, Harm's No Joke

Amy Walsh

Is smoking worth the risk? When a women smokes, she is opening the door to many health problems in the future including gum disease, increase risk for strokes, heart attack, and cancer (March of Dimes, 2010). Are you having difficulties becoming pregnant? Smoking may make it more difficult for the mother to conceive (March of Dimes, 2010). The chance of having an ectopic pregnancy also increases with smoking. According to the Mayo Clinic, an ectopic pregnancy is, “when the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube” (Mayo Clinic, 2013). There are lifetime effects for the person who smokes but smoking during pregnancy can be detrimental to the baby.

Is losing the baby because of smoking during pregnancy really worth it? Serious complications may arise during the pregnancy. Smoking puts the mother at a higher risk for delivering a stillborn baby. Other complications may occur with the placenta including placental abruption and placenta previa. Placental abruption is when the “placenta peels away, partially or almost completely, from the uterine wall before delivery” (March of Dimes, 2010). Placenta previa is “a low-lying placenta that covers part or all of the opening of the uterus” (March of Dimes, 2010). Not only is the pregnancy of great concern, but the health of the unborn baby is also at risk.

All mothers want their babies to be born healthy. They want to be able to count ten little fingers and ten little toes when the baby is born and be able to take the baby home from the hospital soon after the birth. Smoking during the pregnancy can lead to premature and low birth weight babies (CDC, 2013). Birth defects have also been connected to smoking during pregnancy (Mayo Clinic, 2013). The tricky thing about all of this is that each pregnancy is different. One pregnancy may have resulted in a healthy baby with no apparent complications but that doesn’t mean the next pregnancy will be the same.