It is now common knowledge that smoking during pregnancy is a major risk factor and can disrupt the child's development. The consequences of tobacco consumption are unpredictable and can lead to lifelong impairments for your child. Even miscarriage or stillbirth are possible.
In this article, we summarize how smoking during pregnancy affects unborn babies and the risks involved. At the same time, we provide you with tips on how to quit smoking during pregnancy.
Smoking during pregnancy: Consequences of smoking are often ignored
Many pregnant women may not be specifically aware that they are causing significant harm to their child if they continue to smoke during pregnancy. It is a thought that is easily pushed aside: the danger is abstract and just as difficult to grasp as the idea that smoking can cause cancer.
According to current figures, around 170,000 babies per year are still exposed in the womb to the harmful substances associated with smoking. Many newborns suffer damage as a result that requires medical treatment.
Just a few years ago, there were even doctors who advised expectant mothers not to quit cigarettes cold turkey. It was said that they should initially continue smoking in order not to expose the baby to withdrawal. So the mothers continued to smoke and felt encouraged by the medical advice. Today, medicine knows: Anything is better than continuing to smoke. This was also shown by the renowned study Maternal Tobacco Use During Pregnancy and Child Neurocognitive Development .
As soon as an expectant mother finds out about her pregnancy, she should stop smoking immediately and consistently maintain this smoking cessation until birth. You can find out why this is the case in the following chapters and in this video:
Why is smoking such a major risk factor for pregnant women?
A cigarette contains more than 3,800 substances that are not only addictive but also negatively affect health. These primarily include nicotine and carbon monoxide. But substances such as tar, formic acid, or even ammonia are also components of cigarettes.
These toxic substances reach the baby's body almost unfiltered via the placenta. There, they have the same effect as in the mother's body: the blood vessels constrict and reduce the oxygen content in the baby's blood – with fatal consequences!
Significant risk: Your child smokes with you until birth
Disturbing figures: Unborn babies whose mothers smoked approximately 15 cigarettes a day during pregnancy had already been exposed to pollutants from more than 4,000 cigarettes by the time of their birth.
These children are therefore already significantly burdened before their actual start in life and have a much harder time after birth than babies of non-smokers. This can have serious consequences – both before and after birth.
In this chapter, we summarize the consequences that maternal smoking can have for unborn children and how they can even be affected for the rest of their lives.
Premature birth, miscarriage & stillbirth
Lifelong illnesses such as allergies and asthma
Babies of smokers have a significantly higher risk of developing allergies or asthma in later life. However, someone who develops asthma as a teenager may not directly associate this with the fact that their mother smoked during pregnancy. The long-term consequences can therefore manifest themselves beyond childhood.
Heart defects or underdeveloped lungs
Children of smokers often have less developed lungs at birth, and even congenital heart defects are more common. It is therefore not only birth complications that are to be expected, but also further health difficulties for the babies.
Growth and developmental disorders
Babies of smokers are not only born with an average of 250 g less birth weight, they also suffer much more frequently from developmental and learning difficulties throughout their lives. Furthermore, the effects of smoking on the child's intelligence have now been proven.
The IQ of children of smoking mothers is significantly lower. In addition, the number of children with intellectual disabilities or developmental disorders is twice as high among smokers as among other mothers.
Furthermore, illnesses such as ADHD and hyperactivity occur more frequently as a result of smoking during pregnancy. As adults, the children suffer more often than average from metabolic diseases, diabetes, or obesity.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Smoking during and after pregnancy increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, SIDS. In fact, smoking is now considered the greatest risk factor for this tragic event.
Smoking before pregnancy and during pregnancy
Particularly in the early stages of pregnancy, smoking can cause significant damage. It is precisely in the first weeks that most malformations occur in the unborn child, which is exactly when expectant mothers usually do not even know they are expecting a child.
For this reason, it would only be logical to quit smoking as soon as there is a desire to have children. Subjecting oneself to withdrawal during pregnancy is an additional physical and psychological burden. Often, the symptoms of quitting smoking are so strong that it fails. The result is that at the time of birth, 25% of the women affected are still smoking.
Despite everything, the attempt is still worthwhile even if the pregnancy is already several weeks advanced. Even then, giving up cigarettes leads to a significant reduction in complications and damage.
Quitting – but how?
Anyone who wants to quit smoking faces the choice between gradually reducing the amount consumed or "cold turkey," i.e., immediate complete abstinence. Especially during pregnancy, a slow tapering off is not advisable because the clock is ticking. Every cigarette can harm the child.
The myth of the fetus suffering from withdrawal symptoms persists stubbornly, but it is not sustainable in this way. Even if it were: withdrawal is over after a few days, while the potential consequences of smoking may remain for a lifetime.
Is the e-cigarette an alternative?
A clear no! Although e-cigarettes are considered less harmful compared to conventional cigarettes, they also contain pollutants. The liquids in e-cigarettes often contain carrier substances such as propylene glycol and glycerin. And because e-cigarettes are a relatively new phenomenon, the long-term consequences have not yet been sufficiently researched.
As soon as a baby is involved, there is no sensible alternative to complete abstinence. Cigarette addiction is also a serious addictive disease in which, in addition to substance dependence (nicotine), psychological aspects can also play a significant role. If self-withdrawal fails, it is no disgrace. But then professional help is required. When it comes to the question of "child or cigarette," there is no both-and.
How does tobacco consumption by expectant fathers affect the expectant mother?
In a similar form, what has been said also applies to expectant fathers. If they smoke in the shared home, they unintentionally make their partner a passive smoker. She then breathes in the harmful smoke unfiltered – with all the consequences described above.
In fact, it also doesn't help if the smoker pursues their vice exclusively on the balcony. Today it is known that clothing contaminated with cigarette smoke is just as harmful as passive smoking itself. And even when smoking outdoors, many pollutants settle in clothing and hair.
In fact, smoking in men reduces the likelihood of ever having to deal with the protection of their own children at all. Smoking significantly worsens sperm quality.
Conclusion: Pregnant women should under no circumstances expose their baby in the womb to nicotine
Addiction is not to be underestimated, but with the right motivation, quitting is possible – and what could be more motivating than the prospect of a healthy child?
The protection of physical integrity is a human right that also applies before birth. When you become parents, there is no alternative to a complete renunciation of all harmful substances.
If you reach your limits during withdrawal, seek professional help in good time. There are plenty of options for this, for example at the Federal Centre for Health Education or on the website rauchfrei-info.de.
If you want to distract yourself from your cigarette withdrawal, you should devote yourself to the preparations for the birth of your baby. Feel free to take a look at the automatic baby hammock from swing2sleep: It offers your baby a cozy place to sleep where they can find peace more easily. The gentle up and down movements rock your baby to sleep and at the same time promote sleeping through the night.
Take a look at the automatic baby hammock and let yourself be inspired by its great effect – we have already convinced more than 192,000 families.
