Cigarette Smoke Attacks Babies More than Mothers
Smoking can damage the people health very easy, especially the health of pregnant women. Cigarette tobacco smoke can attack babies more than mothers. For example it can cause babies to be born smaller, to make newborns more likely to die of sudden infant death syndrome, and even to affect the rates of cleft lips, heart defects and other problems.
Doctors from Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital found that smoking can affect the thyroids of both mothers and babies. They studied the influence of cigarette smoking on thyroid function of two groups of women at different stages of pregnancy, one in the first trimester and the other in the third trimester. At the end of the investigation they found in both groups that smoking during pregnancy can change the mothers’ thyroid hormone levels.
The thyroid hormones are essential to proper development and differentiation of all cells of the human body. These hormones also regulate protein, fat, and carbohydrate metabolism, affecting how human cells use energetic compounds. They also stimulate vitamin metabolism. Good thyroid function is the key for to maintain a pregnancy, and some pregnant women suffer from thyroid imbalances. This, in turn, affects metabolism and the risk of miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight and impaired brain development.
Doctors said that they measured thyroid hormone levels in the umbilical cords of babies born to smoking mothers and found that smoking-related changes in thyroid function also affected the newborn. But among women who quit while pregnant, thyroid hormone levels were comparable to levels found in nonsmokers, added doctors. That means that thyroid changes can quickly clear up.
