how smoking affect your baby

Figure6 smoking and pregnancy. [Photograph] by Amiya Foster , Nov 26, 2013.

                                  http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=quitting%20smoke

 First of all, up to 5% of infant deaths could be prevented if pregnant women did not smoke. Smoking during pregnancy affects you and your baby's health before, during, and after your baby is born.

Nicotine can affect your baby in following ways:

Weight and size
on average, if a woman smokes one pack of cigarette in one day it will delete half-pound from a baby's birth weight. Smoking two packs a day throughout your pregnancy could make your baby a full pound or more lighter.

Body and lungs
 Their lungs may not be ready to work on their own, which means they may spend their first days or weeks attached to a respirator. These babies may have continuing breathing problems — adverse effects of nicotine. Children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are suffering from asthma, the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

 Heart

Babies whose mother smoked in the first trimester of pregnancy are more likely to have a heart defect at birth. The defects included those that obstruct the flow of blood from the right side of the heart into the lungs and openings between the upper chambers of the heart.

Brain function
Smoking while pregnant can have lifelong effects on your baby's brain. Children of pregnant smokers are especially likely to have learning disorders, behavioral problems, and relatively low IQ's.