Quantitative reasoning - Essay Example

The effect of the presence or absence of carbon monoxide and nicotine in the blood stream of the infants. It is a well known fact that smoking damages your health in innumerable ways. Here in the following discussion we are going to focus on how smoking by pregnant mothers can affect the health of infants and how such babies are at more risk of various illnesses in comparision to the babies born to non smoking mothers.According to the studies done by the researchers of The March of Dimes organization there are more than 2,500 chemicals in cigarette smoke and among those nicotine and carbon monoxide lead to unfavourable pregnancy outcomes.

As per an article in e Health MD when the puff of cigarette smoke is inhaled, tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide are also inhaled by the smoker. Tar coats the lungs, nicotine damages the nerve cells and carbon monoxide reduces the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood.During pregnancy everything in a woman’s blood stream is transferred to the baby through the placenta and umbilical cord. The placenta and umbilical cord cannot filter out the poisonous carbon monoxide and nicotine, as a result, the toxins directly reach the blood stream of the unborn baby.

Because of this the normal growth of the baby is hampered resulting in a low birth weight baby. Such babies have serious illnesses and breathing disorders and have to be kept in a newborn intensive care unit (NICU). Low birth weight can be due to poor growth before birth, preterm delivery or both reasons together. As the studies by the US Public Health Service say, in 2004, 11.9 percent of the babies born to smokers in the United States had low birth weight compared to 7.2 percent of babies born to non smokers.

Compared to non smoking mothers, smoking mothers have an increased risk of premature rupture of the membrane ie the sac that holds the baby inside the uterus breaks earlier than 37 weeks of pregnancy resulting in the birth of a premature baby. Consequently premature and low birth weight babies have an increased risk of chronic lifelong disabilities like cerebral palsy, mental retardation and learning problems. Premature babies may have underdeveloped lungs and brains and stand poor chance of survival in the early months after birth.

In one of the recent studies as stated in an article of March of Dimes organization, women who smoke anytime during the month before pregnancy till the ending of the first trimester are more likely to deliver a baby with congenital heart defects. The risk increases with the increase in the number of cigarettes smoked. A 2003 study by the researchers of March of Dimes points that babies born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy show withdrawal-like symptoms just as the babies of mothers who had some illicit drugs.

For instance babies of smokers are more nervous and agitated than the babies of non smokers. The risk of having cleft lip/palate and isolated cleft palate is also high in such babies in comparision to the babies of non smoking mothers. The children of smoking mothers may be physically smaller than the children of non smokers. Intellectual and behavioural development may also be disturbed as the child develops. Also the babies of the mothers who smoked during pregnancy are thrice at the risk of dying from sudden infant death syndrome(SIDS) than the babies of non smokers.

Babies of smoking mothers dont even get sufficient nutrition from their mother’s milk as compared to the mother’s milk of non smoking mothers. Nicotine found in breast milk of smoking mothers may hinder the milk flow as well as the total quantity of the milk produced. Such babies of smoking mothers also tend to have respiratory tract infections, lung infections and asthma according to an article by Peg Plumbo,CNM in the website parenting.ivillage.com.With all the above facts we can imagine how dangerous the presence of carbon monoxide and nicotine can be to the babies of mothers who smoke during pregnancy and how such mothers can protect their babies if they quit smoking much before being pregnant so that they can first get rid of the toxins produced by cigarettes and there does not stand any chance of such toxins being transferred to the babies’ blood stream.

. References E Health MD. Retrieved April 26, 2010 from http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/smoking preg/SAP_smoking.htmlPlumbo, P,CNM. Smoking : Do you need to stop during pregnancy? ivillage. Retrieved April 27, 2010 from http://parenting.ivillage.com/pregnancy/psafe/o,,midwife_3p6j,oo.htmlSmoking during pregnancy. March of Dimes- Professionals & Researchers. Retrieved April 24, 2010 from http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/14332_1171.asp