Smoking affects baby in the womb
Smoking in any form is always injurious to health. It affects pregnant mother and her unborn baby as well. Though most of our expectant mothers are non-smoker, they are exposed to smoke passively, because of their husbands or relatives who smoke at home. Direct smoking and passive or secondhand smoking are equally harmful for mother and their foetus. When an expecting mother inhales tobacco smoke from a cigarette, some of the chemicals are exhaled immediately and leave the body, but others stay in the body and make their way into the placenta. The unborn child, as well as inhaling the mainstream smoke that the mother breathes in from the cigarette, which stays in her body, it may also inhale any secondhand smoke that is in the air. This would mean that the growing foetus would be negatively affected by two different types of smoke. Apart from lung cancer, heart diseases, stroke, tobacco smoke contains more than 4000 harmful chemicals, of which a number of them are known as cancer causing agents in humans, whilst others are highly toxic and poisonous. The effect of smoking to babies may appear a variety of health problem including low birth weight, abnormal brain development that lead to hearing impairment and respiratory diseases. The risk of suffering from asthma has a higher probability. So we all should avoid smoking in any form direct or indirect during pregnancy for the sake of mother as well as newborn.
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