How does smoking affect pregnancy and childbirth?
It may be harder for a woman to get pregnant if she or her partner smokes. If you smoke and are pregnant, you are at higher risk of serious health problems for both yourself and your unborn baby. Your baby has a greater chance of being born too early, not weighing enough at birth, and even dying. Scientists have found that nicotine spreads throughout your body when you smoke, and is also found in breast milk. This means that if you use nicotine during the time that you are breast feeding, you are feeding your baby this harmful chemical. How does my use of nicotine hurt others? Secondhand smoke has many of the same chemicals found in cigarettes. Exposure to second-hand smoke happens when breathing the smoke from someone else’s cigarette, or from a person breathing out while smoking a cigarette. This kind of smoke also causes cancer and places a person at higher risk of heart disease. In young children, their risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), pneumonia, asthma and bronchitis a
