Protect your baby from cigarette smoking

While many pregnant women do not smoke because they understand the dangers of cigarette smoking to their health and their babies, they still find themselves in surroundings that endanger their baby’s or unborn baby’s life. These include smoke from a thick cloud hanging in the air at a favourite restaurant, or a cigarette the spouse or a visitor left burning in an ashtray a few feet away from their infant or pregnant mum. When a baby or pregnant mum inhales such smoke, this is called second-hand smoking.

Second-hand smoke is a mixture of smoke emitted by the burning cigarette and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of a smoker. Smoke from a cigarette contains more than 250 chemicals known to be toxic or cancer causing. Another name for second-hand smoking is involuntary smoking or passive smoking.

Second-hand smoke has a marked effect on the health of infants and children. Infants are more vulnerable than adults because they are still developing physically and generally have a higher breathing rate which means they may inhale greater quantities of second-hand smoke than adults do.

Passive smoking by a foetus

A pregnant woman who smokes exposes her baby to passive smoke. The toxic chemicals pass through the placenta and put the baby at a risk of low birth weight. A developing foetus exposed to second-hand smoke may be at risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or cot death.

Heavy smoking can reduce a mother’s milk supply and on rare occasions has been associated with symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and diarrhoea in the breastfeeding baby.

Effects of second-hand smoke on children

Children who live in households where there is a smoker may suffer during the first five years of their life if during this time a child spends most of the time with the parent or guardian who smokes.

Women exposed to second-hand smoke during pregnancy are at a higher risk of having babies with slightly lower birth weights than average, which may predispose the newborn to health complications such as cerebral palsy or learning disability.

Second-hand smoke is one of the factors known to cause asthma in children or cause frequent and severe attacks in children who already have asthma. Babies are also prone to have lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia.

Children living in households with smokers are more likely to have a build-up of fluid in their middle ear, which is an indication of chronic middle ear disease (otitis media). Those exposed to passive smoke in the home have lower levels of the good cholesterol that helps protect against coronary artery diseases.

Children of smoking parents are more likely to become smokers themselves.

How can one prevent her baby from secondhand smoking?

Pregnant women ideally should stop smoking for the sake of their children. They can start by reducing the number of cigarettes taken in a day, reducing gradually until they eventually stop smoking completely. Do not breastfeed while smoking; it takes almost an hour for the nicotine to be eliminated from your body and nicotine interferes with the let down reflex that causes milk to accumulate in the milk ducts. Poor breastfeeding may endanger your baby’s health.

Avoid smoking in the room where your baby is. If you must smoke do it outside away from your baby and other children.

Do not allow anyone to smoke near your baby. Let them know how you feel about them smoking around you if you are pregnant or around your baby if you’ve given birth.

If in a restaurant or a public place, request to sit in the non-smoking area. If booking into a hotel, ask for the non-smoking wing.

Should you find someone smoking in your house, open the windows and doors to allow fresh air into the house.

Avoid taking your baby to places where she may encounter smokers. If using public transport, kindly request a smoker to stop smoking. Alternatively, move to another vehicle.

END: BL 06/62

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