Smoking during Pregnancy may Cause Damage to Newborn’s Blood Vessels
We all know that smoking is bad for the health of both a woman and her unborn child. If the diseases that the newborn might suffer because of smoking were to be advertised, most women would leave smoking before becoming pregnant. Now there is another reason to leave smoking before trying to be a proud mom. Scientists have concluded that those children who have mothers smoking when they were not yet born suffer from enlarged blood vessels. This conclusion is based upon a survey of more than 250 children at the age of 5. Mothers of these children smoked during pregnancy.
Blood vessels in the neck of these children, called carotid arteries, that carry blood to their brains, were found to be thicker by 19 microns than in kids whose mothers did not smoke during pregnancy. Another shocking feature was that these vessels were also stiffer by 15% than carotid arteries of kids with non smoking mothers. If fathers of these kids were also smokers, the blood vessels were found to be 28 microns thicker and 21% stiffer than vessels of kids with non smoker parents.
This latest finding is surely the most terrifying news about kids being born with damaged blood vessels and enough to convince women to stop smoking at least during pregnancy.
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January 23 2012 10:43 am | Health care and Pregnancy