Passive smoking in pregnancy affects the development of the fetus
Photo: ISTOCK Enlarge photoTobacco is a very harmful product and not only for those who consume it. Those that are around a person smoker They also suffer the effects of this article, even before its birth. This is highlighted in a new study of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, URV, of Tarragona.
An investigation that highlights how the smoking passive has negative effects on the cognitive development of the fetus. Irritability, higher levels of excitement and greater excitement were some of the effects that cigarettes caused in those children who had a pregnancy exposed to smoke of these products.
Immaturity of the nervous system
To achieve these results, the URV researchers analyzed the cases 158 mothers who were asked about their contact with alcohol and tobacco during their pregnancy. The people in charge of this work checked how exposure to products like tobacco had affected 48 hours after birth-
Two days after arriving in the world, children who had been born to passive smoking mothers presented a greater immaturity of the nervous system. In these cases the babies were more irritable than those who had not been exposed to tobacco smoke in pregnancy and had greater muscle tension, as well as more excitement and difficulty sleeping.
Reduced cognitive ability
The researchers also wanted to analyze how the fact of having a passive smoker as a parent affected in the long term. These babies had a lower cognitive ability at the time of learning communicative functions such as babbling and presented more problems when it comes to recognizing sounds like the voices of their parents.
After 30 months, children who had been born to passive smoking mothers had a greater problem when it came to learning communicative notions, both receptive and expressive. These consequences could result from the entry of nicotine into the bloodstream of the fetus, a product that ends in the baby's nervous system before birth and that causes irreversible effects once is born.
Smoking in pregnancy
If being a passive smoker has these consequences, using tobacco actively is much more serious. The first one who suffers consequences It is the mother, since they increase the chances of lung cancer, their quality of life deteriorates, the stress caused by nicotine addiction increases and a faster sensation of suffocation appears. But the child who is in his belly is undoubtedly the most injured. Those babies born to women with these habits usually do so at a lower weight than they should have, which has a serious impact on their development.
In addition, these children can also be targeted respiratory problems and suffer from childhood asthma. Other issues that affect your health are otitis and other types of infections that make it harder for babies to survive. Although what should worry the mother smoking the most is that this habit can cost her to lose the child since the possibilities of abortion are increased.
And not only in the present the child is left affected by the habit of the mother. In the future, the child born of a female smoker makes it more likely to be sterile due to the mutations suffered by his sperm due to tobacco. These alterations can also cause other problems in the child, such as hyperactivity and other behavioral disorders.
Experts also point out that not only should a mother quit when she becomes pregnant. All members of the home they should leave this habit when the pregnancy begins because if the woman who is a passive smoker can also present complications in this period since exposure to smoke makes it more likely to have some alteration in her neurological system.
Damián Montero
