Maternal Smoking Essay

Title: Maternal Smoking and Its Impact on Foetal, Neonatal and Maternal Health in Ireland.

Introduction: Smoking itself is a significant national public health issue, with 7,000 deaths a year caused by smoking-related diseases¹. Smoking, and second-hand smoke, poses a dangerous risk to anyone exposed and this is especially true in maternal smoking during pregnancy.

Smoking is harmful to the mother, as it is to any individual who smokes, but it is linked to severe health issues for the baby. Problems seen in unborn foetuses include low birth weight, defects and even miscarriage. Problems seen in neonates include sudden infant death syndrome, asthma and childhood obesity. The mother is also at risk of vaginal bleeding and premature labour2.

Smoking is also linked to lowering a women's fertility as it lowers the level of oestrogen produced by the body3. This makes it more difficult for a women to get pregnant in the first place, resulting in, possibly, a more stressful start to the pregnancy.

The hypoxia followed by carboxyhaemoglobinaemia is the underlying cause for the tertatogenic nature of smoking during pregnancy. Nicotine is, as of yet, not definitely linked to any developmental disorders in foetuses, although nicotine is passed onto the neonate through the nursing mother's milk, if she is smoking while breast-feeding4.

There is a considerable amount of literature available on this topic, although it still appears to remain a serious issue. The considerable difficulty in quitting smoking is one cause for the continuation of the issue of maternal smoking.

Current status of Maternal Smoking: In 2011, 31.8 years of age was the average age of a mother giving birth in Ireland5. With 29% of Irish women in the category of 30-44 year...

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...st, however, go beyond merely informing their patients of the dangers of smoking while pregnant and must take an active role in assisting the mother to quit, by encouraging use of programmes such as QUIT and, if all other measures taken to attempt to quit fail, nicotine replacement therapy, although its effect on foetal health is unclear4.

Perhaps the most severe, but potentially most effective, method of cutting down on maternal smoking while pregnant would be to make smoking while pregnant illegal. This, however, leads to many ethical complications, such as the right to bodily integrity.

Maternal smoking while pregnant is a serious public health issue in Ireland, resulting in many detrimental effects to the health of the mother and the child. Mothers should be assisted in attempting to quit to ensure a better quality of life for themselves and for their children.