Alcohol Consumption and Smoking During Pregnancy - Essay Example

Alcohol Consumption and Smoking During Pregnancy Consumption of alcohol and smoking is an increasing habit of pregnant women and girls. In the United States, smoking and consuming alcohol during pregnancy is highly associated with pregnancy complications. The difficulties vary from low weights of newly born, fetal loss as well as spontaneous abortion. Drinking and smoking are highly associated with social-demographic factors such as age, marital status, the level of education, income and occupations (Rubin, Krasilnikoff, John, Arne and Birgitte, 405).

To understand the reasons for the consumption of alcohol and smoking in pregnant women, I carried out a brief research on the issue. My study was an observational exercise where I conducted a group interview consisting of three women Mary, Jane, and Betty. Mary is a 24-year-old woman. She is addicted to smoking, and she smoked during the pregnancy of her three-year-old son. She is a single mother and works as an insurance underwriter at a local firm. Jane is a 27-year-old unemployed woman. During her pregnancies on her 2-year-old and five-year-old daughters, she smoked and drank alcohol.

She is a recovering drinking addict and has attended numerous therapy sessions over the past six months. Betty is a 30-year-old car sales agent. She also drank heavily during the first trimester and after the birth of her 2-year-old daughter. The interview took place at 10.00 am on 4th August, 2015 at the state conference room. The group interview lasted for more than three hours with five minutes break at the end of every hour. The discussion also involved the respondents providing medical reports of themselves as well as their children for analysis and comparison.

Analysis In the interview, I verified that all the three women have limited knowledge of the effects of smoking and alcohol consumption on their unborn children. However, they had often ignored these facts. They further explained that drinking or smoking in small amounts would have no effect on the unborn child. Furthermore, Mary also was not aware of inhaling cigarette smoke from another person. She also did not tell her health care provider of smoking during the pregnancy for fear of intimidation.

Betty was a recovering alcoholic addict. She quit drinking after she realized that she was three months pregnant. She joined numerous online women groups campaigning for sobriety during pregnancy. She also joined communal activities. The most interesting observation was that the three women were unaware of the effects of smoking on the physical and psychological wellbeing of their children in the future. The women also did not know that smoking might trigger sudden infant death syndrome while alcohol consumption triggers the fetal alcohol syndrome.

Reflections It was interesting that the women did not have such information that we had studied in class. However, the US government has invested heavily in ensuring that health care providers educate pregnant women during prenatal care visits (Haglund and Sven, 26). Surprisingly, the women also informed me of the role of heredity, poor parenting and lack of social support services as key driving factors for smoking and drinking. Age also plays a significant role in determining tobacco use/drinking preference and cessation of the habit.

Furthermore, the government and the society should provide social support services to drug addicts and encourage them to stop consuming the products during pregnancy (Kline, Zena and Michelle, 44). Works Cited Haglund, Bengt, and Sven Cnattingius. "Cigarette smoking as a risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome: a population-based study." American journal of public health 80.1 (1990): 29-32. Kline, Jennie, Zena Stein, and Michelle Hutzler. "Cigarettes, Alcohol and Marijuana: varying associations with birthweight.

" International Journal of Epidemiology 16.1 (1987): 41-50. Rubin, David, P. A. Krasilnikoff, John M. Leventhal, Arne Berget, and Birgitte Weile. "Cigarette Smoking and Alcohol Consumption during Pregnancy by Danish Women and Their Spouses—A Potential Source of Fetal Morbidity." The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 14.3 (1988): 401-416.