Expectant Fathers As Well As Mothers Need To Quit Smoking

Expectant fathers should take this research extremely seriously

A new study shows that pregnant women are not just in danger of cigarettes by smoking them themselves, but they also face considerable risk from passive smoking. The scientists from the University of Nottingham evaluated nineteen different previous studies and concluded that passive smoking had a significant effect on increasing the rates of women having stillborn babies or children with birth defects.

Women who were exposed to passive smoking in the form of ten or more cigarettes daily had a 23 percent bigger chance of having a stillborn child and a 13 percent greater chance of having a child with a congenital malformation.

Professor Andrew Shennan, from St. Thomas Hospital in London said that it was essential the women were warned of the dangers of passive smoking and that they told anyone smoking near them to put out their cigarettes. Smoking in the presence of pregnant women or children has become in many social circles completely unacceptable and this message should be reinforced as much as possible.

Expectant fathers should take this research extremely seriously because if they are smokers they are likely to have a big impact on the health of their future child.  Ukmedix News has already published research which shows that men who smoke have weaker sperm, and the researchers said that they weren't sure whether smoking had a bigger negative impact on the health of their children by exposing their wives to secondhand smoke or whether it was the impact of smoking on their sperm which was the biggest threat.

Dr Jo Leonardi-Bee from the University of Nottingham who led this new study explained that in any case it was essential that men quit smoking before they tried to have a baby to reduce the likelihood of complications.

The study named  'Secondhand Smoke and Adverse Fetal Outcomes in Nonsmoking Pregnant Women: A Meta-analysis' was published by the journal Pediatrics.