The Nicotine Effects in Fetus - Research Paper Example

The Effects of Nicotine on Development Abstract When a person picks up their first cigarette to smoke, they truly believe that they have life under control. They believe that whenever they want to stop, they will have the power to do so. But this is not always the case. Cigarette smoking contains nicotine which acts as a stimulant and causes addiction in mammals. Therefore after conceiving many mother’s find it difficult to give up the habit even though they are aware of the adverse effects of smoking on the health of their unborn child. In a nutshell smoking not only causes fertility problems in both the parents but often results in still births, miscarriages, spontaneous abortion or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). If miraculously the child survives the obstacles of such a dangerous pregnancy there are still many health risks that they are prone such as problems in the placenta, lower birth weights, perinatal mortality, decreased intellectual function, childhood cancers, asthma, attention deficit disorder, lower IQ’s, and other body development issues. Furthermore some studies prove that these children are also more susceptible to behavioral problems and drug abuse later during the course of their lives. Introduction Knowing when to stop is the key to a healthy and prosperous life, anything done in excess proves to be harmful not only to us but to all those around us; to anyone who is directly or indirectly dependent on us. For example eating isn’t bad, but over eating or eating right before swimming can be very harmful. Similarly there is nothing wrong with spending leisure time watching the television but if we waste time flipping through channels when there is a paper due the next day, the result is a disaster! Smokers argue that smoking isn’t bad especially if they have the ability to have the ability to control the number of cigarettes they smoke per day many therefore claim that their habit is under control. But what happens when you become dependent? Cigarettes contain Nicotine which as you will read ahead causes dependence and makes it very difficult to give up the bad habit of smoking. What happens then when a woman who is addicted to smoking gets pregnant? Smoking is a habit that does not only harm us but anyone dependent on us. A fetus is dependent on the mother for everything! So whatever she puts in her body, directly affects the child growing inside her. About nicotine Nicotine constitutes around 0.6 to 3.0% of the dry weight of tobacco. It is an alkaloid from the nightshade family of plants. Biosynthesis is constantly taking place in the roots and leaves of the nicotine plant. It also functions as an anti-herbivore chemical and has widely been used as an insecticide in the past. Nicotine acts as a stimulant in even low concentrations that are equal to an average cigarette yield of about 1 mg of absorbed nicotine. This property is the main factor responsible for the dependence-forming effects of tobacco smoking (Siegmund, Leitner, and Pfannhauser). Trends in cigarette smoking Statistics show that in 2009 the world population added up to 6.8 billion people out of which about 1.35 billion people smoke, which means that approximately 20% of the world’s population, is polluting their bodies with nicotine. In the United States of America, 26% of the Caucasian men and 22% of the Caucasian women, 29% of the African American men and 21% of the women, 24% of the Hispanic men and 12% of the Hispanic women, 24% of the Asian men and 12% of the Asian women, and 41% of the American Indian men and 41% of the American Indian women smoked (Quit Smoking Hub). These results are compiled in the table below; Community Percentage of Men Percentage of Women African American 29 21 American Indian 41 41 Asian 24 12 Caucasian 26 22 Hispanic 24 12 When talking about smoking, the general perception is that men smoke a lot more than women and only a small negligible proportion of the female population smokes. Such a perception exists due to many conservative stereotypes that are associated with the image of a woman. But the statistics clearly show that the number of women smoking is greatly increasing and apart from the Asian and Hispanic communities, the percentage of women smoking is very close to the percentage of men smoking in each community. These trends have a very important implication which was briefly hinted at in the introduction. As the number of women smoking is increasing it is evident that because of the dependency factor it will become very difficult for them to stop even after they get pregnant. Therefore, we can safely say that the number of pregnant women smoking is also increasing. By smoking the pregnant mother is not only risking her life but is also putting the life of her unborn child in danger. Children born after a smoking mother’s pregnancy suffer from many fetal and early child development problems. What is so bad about smoking? Cigarette smoking affects each part of the human body because of the harmful chemicals that it is made up of. Mild ignorable effects of smoking include gum disease, tooth decay, bad breath, staining of teeth, frequent headaches etc. Whereas smoking has many fatal side effects as well, including cancers in the mouth, breasts, or lungs. Strokes caused by a lack of oxygen and narrowed blood vessels to the brain. Smoking also weakens the lungs and increases the risk of getting bronchial infections. Nicotine causes blood pressure to rise and often makes the blood clot. Carbon monoxide is also very harmful since it robs clean blood of oxygen which leads to the development of cholesterol deposits on the artery walls. Collectively all of these effects add up to cause an increased risk of heart attacks. (quitsmoking.com) The adverse health effects of smoking have results that can easily be measured! Forty percent of the men who smoke heavily will die before they reach retirement age, as compared to only 18 percent of nonsmokers. Women who smoke face an increased risk of cervical cancer, and pregnant women who smoke take a chance with the health of their unborn babies. (quitsmoking.com) Smoking during pregnancy It is estimated that more than 22 million American women smoke and despite numerous health warnings given by doctors, researchers and family members approximately 25% of all pregnancies in the United States, eclipse legal and illegal drugs of abuse, including cocaine. (Slotkin) Figures show that in the US alone, expecting mothers who smoke cause the deaths of over 600 male and 400 female babies each year. And the babies who survive a smoking mother’s pregnancy suffer from innumerable smoking related problems. (Quit Smoking Facts) Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including horrible substances like cyanide, lead, and at least 60 other cancer-causing compounds which when a mother smokes during pregnancy brew into her bloodstream, which is the baby's only source for vital oxygen and nutrients. While none of the 4,000-plus chemicals is good for the baby, nicotine and carbon monoxide are especially more harmful. These two toxins account for almost every smoking-related complication during pregnancy. (Christmas) Gynecologists tell their pregnant patients, that when they smoke, their babies smoke as well. When a pregnant mother takes in a puff of smoke she is essentially breathing in smoke. The smoke draws in nicotine into her lungs, which uses this as a passageway to enter the bloodstream and hence all other parts of her body. Since she is pregnant, the nicotine finds a way to reach the fetus through the placenta and then circulates into the baby's blood. Effects of nicotine can be seen in every trimester since nicotine serves to significantly reduce the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the fetal tissues. These effects range from spontaneous abortions in the first trimester to premature delivery, malformations and decreased birth weight in the third. Most organisms exhibit some retardation of the embryonic growth when they are exposed to nicotine, though the exact effects of nicotine are not the same for every organism. (Cebra) Infant Mortality is the probability of a child dying between birth and exactly one year of age expressed per 1,000 live births. (UNICEF) It is therefore the number of deaths in baby’s either at birth or before birth due to a miscarriage. Statistics show that infant mortality is 50 percent higher when the mother smokes. Children of smoking mothers are also 2½ times more likely to die of a sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) also know as a crib death. (Quit Smoking) Each year around 2,000 deaths are caused from sudden infant death syndrome which is usually a result of secondhand tobacco smoke. The babies who do survive such a dangerous pregnancy suffer from many issues that babies of non smoking mothers are safe against. On average, women who smoke give birth to babies who weigh less at birth than babies of nonsmoking mothers. If a mother smokes very heavily, that is more than a pack a day then the baby’s birth weight is likely to be even lower. Heavy smoking is identified as when the mother smokes more than a pack a day. This lower weight in babies is attributed to the nicotine present in cigarettes. Nicotine leads to the starvation of essential oxygen in the baby’s blood. This oxygen is needed for a healthy and strong growth. Nicotine chokes off oxygen by narrowing blood vessels throughout the baby’s body, including the ones in the umbilical cord. Lower birth-weights are hazardous for babies since they cause them to be frail and vulnerable to many ills and diseases, as well as respiratory distress syndrome, bleeding in the brain and many blood infections. It is argued that generally baby’s are quick to gain back the lost weight, by the time they reach age 7 however a child of a mother who smoked during pregnancy is still expected to be shorter in height, slower at reading and even have lower "social adjustment" than the child of a nonsmoking mother. (Quit Smoking) The main problem with the lighter undersized babies is that they tend to have underdeveloped bodies. Usually it is the lungs that are faulty and cause problems for the child immediately after birth. The young infant’s lungs are usually unable to work on their own, which means that these babies have to spend their first few days or weeks of their young lives, soon after birth attached to a respirator. After they are finally able to breathe on their own, these babies may still suffer from continuous breathing problems which are caused due to the delayed lung development. These children are especially more vulnerable to asthma in comparison to other children. (Robert Welch) The pregnancy of a smoking mother is labeled as dangerous for several reasons. Nicotine and other tobacco products cross the placenta and affect brain function of the growing fetus. Smoking during pregnancy is held responsible as the reason for causing many horrific effects on children, from making them more prone to conduct disorder, language and reading difficulties to affecting their lung function in later years. Firstly, a woman who smokes during her pregnancy, approximately more than 10 cigarettes a day substantially increases the likelihood that her child will develop certain psychiatric disorders during adolescence. Generally for boys these are behavioral problems, where a smoking mother’s son is at 4 times the risk to have bad behavior as compared to the son of a non-smoking mother. And for the girls it is a drug abuse problem. Daughters of smoking mothers have a 5 time higher risk to indulge in addictive drugs as compared to daughters of mothers who did not smoke during pregnancy. (June Russell) Secondly, immediately after the mother’s smokes a cigarette (or uses nicotine in any form) there is a 30 minute reduction in fetal breathing and the disturbing factor is that it takes about 90 minutes for it to recover to a normal state. By which time it is usually time for the mother to have another cigarette. Thirdly a study proves that the womb of expecting mothers who smoked during pregnancy had traces of NNAL; a powerful cancer-causing chemical which is found in cigarettes. (June Russell) Babies whose mothers smoked during the first trimester of pregnancy are more likely to suffer from a heart defect at birth. In a study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) it was proved that babies of smoking mothers stand at a higher risk of suffering from certain types of congenital heart defects. It read that the incidence of risk was 20 to 70 percent higher than it was for babies whose mothers did not smoke. Defects include obstruction of the flow of blood from the right side of the heart into the lungs and openings between the upper chambers of the heart. Furthermore even the brains of these babies are also affected; smoking during pregnancy has a lifelong effect on a baby's brain. Children of pregnant smoking mothers are especially likely to have learning disorders, behavioral problems, and relatively lower IQs. (Robert Welch) Attention Deficit disorder is when a child finds it difficult to concentrate on one task and is easily distracted, forgets things, frequently switch’s from one activity to another and misses details. These children have difficulty maintaining focus and get bored with a task after only a brief period of time has elapsed and generally lag behind their peers. Smoking during pregnancy boosts the risk of a child developing attention deficit disorder (ADD). (About.com) Scientists and the public continue to pay a greater amount of attention to effects on the fetus of cocaine and other illicit drugs; however a change in focus is required. It is believed by some researchers that if they concentrate more on the awareness regarding effects of nicotine and drug abuse there could be a disproportionately larger impact on human health. (Slotkin) A report published in the June issue of the journal for Pediatrics at the Brown Medical School suggests that women who smoke as low as 6 to 7 cigarettes per day even tend to give birth to babies who are definitely more jittery, more excitable, stiffer and even more difficult to console than the newborns of nonsmoking mothers. The researchers of this paper advocate that the higher the dose of nicotine measured in a mother, the greater the signs of stress in her new baby therefore there is a direct relationship between stress levels in newborns and nicotine intake by pregnant mothers. The reasons associated with this relationship are said to be due to neonatal withdrawal, whereby nicotine has the same toxic effect on the fetus as any illegal drug would have on a grownup person. (Science daily) The premature detachment of a normally planted placenta, known as the Placental abruption, accounts for 15 to 25% of all perinatal mortality due to complications such as preterm delivery, fetal distress, maternal coagulopathy and ischemic injury to other organs of the unborn child. Placenta previa, is a condition where the implantation of the placenta in the lower part of the lower uterine segment in advance of the fetal presenting can be complicated due to prematurity, placenta accreta, vasa previa and hemorrhage. It is approximated that there is a 33% increase in perinatal and neonatal mortality in smoking women. This increase occurs independently of the decrease in birth weight of the fetus. Birth weights of baby’s depend on two factors: that is the gestational age of the fetus at the time of delivery and the rate of fetal growth. It has been diagnosed that nicotine affects both of these factors and hence plays a major role in altering birth weights. (Lambers, Clark) While the mean length of gestation is only slightly shorter in pregnant smokers, the proportion of preterm births increases significantly. Ontario Perinatal analysis determined that maternal smoking increases the perinatal death risk for mothers smoking less than one pack per day by 20% and 35% for those mothers who smoke more than one pack per day. (Meurs) Smoking during pregnancy is a serious problem since many problems associated with it effect the unborn child, in a nutshell smoking not only causes fertility problems in both the parents but is a major cause for spontaneous abortion, problems in the placenta, lower birth weights, perinatal mortality, decreased intellectual function, childhood cancers, and sudden infant death syndrome. (Meurs) A pregnant mothers smoking habit is no longer a question of whether or not the unborn will be harmed by the use of nicotine, but it is a question of the degree, number, types, observation and the length of time through which these harms actually effect the baby. At a bare minimum, nicotine causes the fetal brain to grow millions of extra acetylcholine receptors in the cortex, striatum, and cerebellum regions, and therefore it unnaturally regulates the pre-birth flow of more than 200 neuro-chemicals within the unborn child’s mind and body, including dopamine, serotonin and adrenaline. (Polito) The father’s role Contrary to popular belief it is not only a mother whose smoking habits affect the health of the child. Free radicals; cancer-causing agent found in smoke, can actually alter sperm DNA, and hence increasing the affected cells’ susceptibility to cancer. (Journal of the National Cancer Institute). The child continues to be at risk even after birth if the parents are smoking around him/her. When parents smoke around the child they pollute the air that the child breathes in, hence causing many breathing disorders such as asthma etc. What can be done! Although the frequency of smoking during pregnancy has greatly decreased from 48% in the 1950’s to only 16% in 1995, nevertheless, it is clear that cigarette smoking still stands as one of the most common drugs to be used during pregnancy despite its proven adverse effects on the developing fetus. Cigarette smoking is undoubtedly the largest and most important known variable that accounts for low birth weight and infant death. It is therefore crucial that interventions be organized to decrease smoking in pregnant women. Service obstetricians and other medical personnel must provide to both the mother and the unborn child. It is obvious that a pregnant woman once informed of the possible long term effects of her smoking habit on the unborn child, may be more motivated to stop smoking during pregnancy than at other time in her life. Therefore pregnant smoking mothers are a viable market that must be targeted with products that help quit smoking. Intensified efforts to increase public knowledge regarding the numerous adverse effects of cigarette smoking are still urgently needed so that smoking during pregnancy becomes a rare event. (Meurs) References 2010 Smoking Statistics – US and Worldwide « Share Your Quit Smoking Story – Stories to Help You Quit Smoking. (n.d.). Quit Smoking Now - Quit Smoking Products - Quit Smoking Advice and Facts. Retrieved October 25, 2011, from http://www.quitsmokinghub.com/blog/2010/02/2010-smoking-statistics-us-and-worldwide/ Category. (n.d.). ADD - ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment and Coping. ADD - ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment and Coping. Retrieved October 23, 2011, from http://add.about.com/ Cebra, T. (n.d.). Nat Science. Smoking and Pregnancy. Retrieved October 24, 2011, from www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/sgilber1/DB_lab/Student/Nicotine/Nicotine.html How Smoking Affects Your Body. (n.d.). QuitSmoking.com - The Quit Smoking Company Home Page Stop Smoking. Retrieved October 25, 2011, from http://www.quitsmoking.com/kopykit/reports/body.htm How smoking during pregnancy affects you and your baby | BabyCenter. (n.d.). BabyCenter | Homepage - Pregnancy, Baby, Toddler, Kids . Retrieved October 23, 2011, from http://www.babycenter.com/0_how-smoking-during-pregnancy-affects-you-and-your-baby_1405720.bc June Russell's Health Facts: Smoking - Women. (n.d.). June Russell's Health Facts: Home. Retrieved October 23, 2011, from http://www.jrussellshealth.org/smokwomen.html Lambers, D. S., & Clark, K. E. (1996). The maternal and fetal physiologic effects of nicotine. Perinatology, 20(2), 115-126. Meurs, K. V. (1999). Cigarette smoking, pregnancy and the developing fetus. Stanford university school of medicine (Special Article), 1(1), 14-16. Nicotine Changes Newborn Behavior Similar To Heroin And Crack. (n.d.). Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. Retrieved October 24, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/06/030602023446.htm Polito, J. R. (n.d.). WhyQuit - Smoking Nicotine While Pregnant or Breastfeeding: using pregnancy to stop and stay quit. WhyQuit - the Internet's leading cold turkey quit smoking resource. Retrieved October 25, 2011, from http://whyquit.com/whyquit/LinksBirth.html Russel. (1997). Smoking and Cancer. of the National Cancer Institute, 34, 98-113. Siegmund, B., Leitner, E., & Pfannhauser, W. (1999). Determination of the Nicotine Content of Various Edible Nightshades (Solanaceae) and Their Products and Estimation of the Associated Dietary Nicotine Intake. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 47(8), 3113–3120. Slotkin, T. (1998). Fetal nicotine or cocaine exposure: which one is worse?. The Journal Of Pharmacology And Experimental Therapeutics, 285(3), 931-945. Smoking Facts - Facts about Smoking - Smoking Statistics. (n.d.). The ultimate quit smoking guide. Stop smoking once only...and once and for all. Retrieved October 25, 2011, from http://www.quitguide.com/smoking-facts.html UNICEF - Definitions . (n.d.). UNICEF - UNICEF Home. Retrieved October 25, 2011, from http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/stats_popup1.html Read More