smoking on the body
Tobacco is one of the leading preventable causes of death in the United States. Nicotine, which is an alkaloid derived from the tobacco plant, is a potent chemical that has powerful effects on the human body, especially when administered rapidly or at high doses. Prenatal exposure to nicotine is associated with adverse reproductive outcomes, including altered neural structure and functioning, cognitive deficits, and behavior problems in the offspring (9). At least 20% - 30% of pregnant women are estimated to smoke cigarettes, although smoking is associated with low birth weight, prematurity and infant mortality. In the United States, smoking accounts annually for estimated fetal deaths ranging from 19,000 to 141,000, for 1,900 to 4,800 deaths during or immediately after parturition, and for 1,200 to 2,200 death from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (7). Maternal smoking has been implicated in long term deficits in infant mental development and adverse behavioral problems in children such as attention disorder. Nicotine crosses the human placenta and has direct effects on the developing fetus. Pre-clinical studies suggest that maternal smoking during pregnancy produces changes on the offspring's neural functioning, includi
The consequences of smoking during pregnancy are very dramatic. If clinicians are able to convince their patients to stop smoking early in their pregnancy, a major impact may be made on the incidence of low birth weight infants, perinatal morbidity and mortality, as well as cognitive deficits and behavioral problems in the offspring. A strong statement has to be made on the issue of tobacco exposure during pregnancy. This could be accomplished by informing women that their infants may not only be "smaller" than their nonsmoking counterparts, but their infants may also have transient or permanent changes in their lung and brain ultrastructure. A patient who is informed of these possible long-term effects of nicotine on her child may be more successful with her smoking cessation. The birth weight of a baby is dependent on two factors: the gestational age of the fetus at the time of delivery, and the rate of fetal growth up until that point. Nicotine has been shown to affect both of these factors. The average birth weight of infants prenatally exposed to nicotine is 100 to 320g lighter than their nonexposed counterparts (5). Therefore, the rate of delivering a low birth weight or premature infant has remained consistently increased over the past four decades despite advances in prenatal and neonatal care. A study by T.A. Slotkin, on impaired cardiac function during postnatal hypoxia in rats exposed to nicotine, proposes that maternal smoking correlates highly with parturitional/neonatal death including Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Nicotine exposure of fetal rats reproduces the increased mortality when animals are tested postnatally with hypoxia. Rats exposed to nicotine prenatally show an impaired adrenomedullary response, as well as alterations in brain-stem noradrenergic mechanisms that are likely to participate in cardiorespiratory control (7). Pren
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1278
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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