The state of a woman who is expecting a baby is known as pregnant. The pregnancy is triggered by fertilization of the ovum by the spermatozoid and the nestling of the egg in the uterine cavity. It ends by the birth which takes place approximately 9 months after the fertilization.
A pregnant woman is by no means a sick woman for, on the contrary, she is about to give life, but pregnancy is a particularly vulnerable period for the future mother and her child to be.
Cigarette smoke and the act of smoking are very harmful to the mother and her child as the main constituents of tobacco pass the placenta barrier and can reach the foetus. However, in Europe it is estimated that 70% of female smokers continue to smoke when they are pregnant and the majority of those who stop smoking during pregnancy take it up again after giving birth.
The tobacco consumption of a pregnant woman can be measured very precisely by the dosage of cotinine, which represents 80% of the break-down product of nicotine. It is present in every biological environment (blood, urine, saliva, milk, hair, amniotic fluid). Cotinine can be found in the foetus and the amniotic fluid of 30 to 45% of pregnant women smokers.
In short, tobacco provokes an alteration, not only in the fertility of women but also in that of men and for a pregnant woman, it increases the risk of an ectopic pregnancy, of metrorrhagia, premature birth, delays in intra uterine growth, foetal death, foetal malformations. Tobacco also leads to frequent problems for the child after birth such as its psychomotor and cognitive development.
Pregnant women smokers have spontaneous miscarriages three times more often than non smokers. The prenatal mortality rate increases by 50 to 150% and the danger of sudden cot death is doubled when the parents smoke.
The pregnant woman smoker is also subject to oral health problems, the risk of stretch marks, abnormal scar healing after a caesarean and changes in certain biological parameters such as blood sugar and insulin levels.
The European HELP programme for fighting against tobacco can bring you a lot of information and support for giving up smoking.
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