Effects of Smoking while pregnant

Effects of Smoking while Pregnant
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Summary
The risks that are linked with smoking are common and well known. However, despite this knowledge, many women who are smokers continue smoking even during pregnancy. Nicotine can cross the placenta and, therefore, smoking hurts the fetus in a number of ways. Babies born to women that smoked while pregnant are at higher risk of having low birth weight and a small circumference of the head with an increased likeliness of experiencing sudden infant death syndrome. Recent studies have indicated that prenatal nicotine exposure permanently affects the fetal brain. Due to this effect on the brain prenatal nicotine exposure negatively affects the development and behavior of the child with several studies highlighting the link between smoking while pregnant and negative behaviors among children. This research will, therefore, focus on the behavioral effects of maternal smoking while pregnant among children aged between 1-3 years. The study will focus on establishing a link between maternal smoking in pregnancy and four behavior problems that are aggressive/destructive behavior, impulsive behavior, deficit disorder, and low social competence. The objective will be establishing a link between maternal smoking and the stated behavioral problems among mothers attending the prenatal clinic in public hospitals. The study will use a descriptive non-experimental cross-sectional study design where it will use a structured questionnaire for data collection. The data will be statistically analyzed with the P-value used to determine the statistical significance of the data collected where a P- value of lower than 0.05 of the data indicating statistical significance. SPSS will also be used, and the Cronbach’s constant will be used in this case to determine the reliability and validity of the SPSS analysis.
Definition of Terms
Maternal smoking: - Smoking by the mother.
SPSS: - This is the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences which is a software used for statistical analysis of data.
P-value: - This is a value in significance testing in statistical testing that is the probability of getting a result from test-statistics in at least one extreme than the one observed in case of a null hypothesis.
Cronbach’s alpha constant: - This is a measure of internal consistency.
Secondary smoking: - Inhalation of tobacco smoke in the environment by other individuals except for the primary user.
Introduction
Smoking during pregnancy places more risk for spontaneous abortion and is an increased threat to the survival and health of infants and children compared to using cocaine during pregnancy. The NCHS most recent statistical data revealed the top 15 causes of infant mortality and among these smoking contributes to five of them. Smoking is also an increasingly pervasive problem with approximately one of every ten women who are pregnant being smokers. This accounts for nearly half a million births every year with even more non-smoking pregnant women being regularly exposed to second-hand smoking. This problem is suspected to be greater than highlighted because many pregnant women who smoke and the non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoking neither report their use nor their exposure.
Cigarettes have a cocktail of harmful compounds that include nicotine, sulphides, cyanide, and cadmium among other hydrocarbons that are carcinogenic and well known to be toxic for the development of the fetus (McCrory & Layte, 2012). Studies have established that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of, for example, disruptive behavior disorders and teenage delinquency (Wakschlag & al., 2007). Smoking has, therefore, been associated with a variety of social and psychological characteristics that have placed both parents and children at similar behavioral risks associated with the exposure (Martin, Dombrowski, Mullis, Wisenbaker, & Huttunen, 2005). There is little evidence, and minimal research that has been conducted to establish the effects of maternal smoking (active and passive) on the behavior of the child. Therefore, this study will be aimed highlighting the effects of maternal effects on behavioral pregnancy outcomes that are associated with smoking while pregnant.
Problem Statement
Smoking during pregnancy has been linked with several adverse outcomes for children. The outcomes include a negative impact on the child’s physical health and development and today these outcomes have been found to extend to the psychological health and development. Understanding cigarette smoking’s effects on the child’s development is faced with two deterrent problems. First, at the physiological level, studying the teratogenic consequences of cigarettes are confronted with a very complex substance because cigarettes have over 3000-4000 compounds with the impact of only a small set of these compounds having been researched (Martin, Dombrowski, Mullis, Wisenbaker, & Huttunen, 2005). Second, research that has been conducted on the long-term effects of smoking among pregnant women has no single effect. Therefore, it is associated with several social and psychological characteristics placing parents and their children at higher risks of developing behaviors attributed to exposure to cigarette smoke (Martin, Dombrowski, Mullis, Wisenbaker, & Huttunen, 2005). Due to such factors, a large number of experts disagree on the consequences of exposure to cigarette smoking on the child’s social and psychological development. This is related to the minimal amount of results with a capacity to find out the adverse effects of more than a single developmental period for the child while controlling a wide range other factors that affect development (Martin, Dombrowski, Mullis, Wisenbaker, & Huttunen, 2005). There are several health outcomes that are linked with infant exposure to maternal smoking. These effects as indicated earlier include low body weight at birth, infant mortality, respiratory infections, asthma, modest cognitive development impairments, and behavioral problems. However, despite the knowledge of a link between maternal smoking during pregnancy and future behavioral problems, there is minimal research and evidence that provides a link between the two variables.
Rationale for the Research
Smoking is the sole greatest preventable cause of physical and psychological health outcomes of pregnancy. Studies have indicated that a pregnant woman’s smoking increases the risk of the development of behavioral problems that are often disruptive. Researchers have revealed that associations exist between a child’s utero exposure to smoking and specific patterns of aberrant behavior among toddlers, school age children, and among teenagers. The proposition has been these patterns establish a continuum that is united by an underlying theme of disrupted social information processing. The importance and the extent of this problem, and the existing government efforts to address the problem have promoted a study in the area to increase present literature on the subject. In addition, due to the presence of minimal research in the area and the existing disagreements among experts on the consequences of exposure to cigarette smoking on the child’s social and psychological development. This research will provide an evidence-based association between maternal smoking in pregnancy and the development of behavioral problems among children.
Research Objectives
This study aims at establishing a highlighting the effects of smoking while pregnant on the child and this case the behavioral problems associated with maternal smoking. The objectives of this research, therefore, include:
* To highlight the link between maternal smoking and behavioral problems.
* To highlight how maternal smoking during pregnancy causes behavioral problems in the child.
* To find out the relationship between maternal smoking and aggressive/destructive behavior.
* To find out the relationship between maternal smoking and impulsive behaviors.
* To investigate the relationship between maternal smoking attention deficit disorder.
* To establish the relationship between maternal smoking and low social competence of the child.
Research Hypothesis
Smoking while pregnant is linked to many adverse outcomes for children. These outcomes may be physical, for example, low birth weight and size. However, there are also negative social and psychological adverse consequences, and these are, for example, behavioral problems. The negative effects have been even found to extend into adolescence and in some instances into adulthood. This is associated with the fact that children act out on these negative behaviors, and the acting out behavior here implies depicting impulsiveness, truancy, and attention deficit disorders just to mention a few of the behavioral problems. This indicates the definite relationship between maternal smoking and future behavioral problems for the child.
Literature Review
The involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke among children is today common and has become a significant health problem receiving increased attention from the pediatric, public health, and research communities. Per the Surgeon’s General Report (2006), no safe level of exposure to Tobacco exists, however, 30% of children in America are in households where there is at least one adult-smoker with about 60% evidenced to have recent exposure (Nass & Frank, 2010).
Research conducted on the etiology of behavioral problems among children whose mothers smoked while pregnant provide strong evidence that exposure to nicotine or tobacco smoke leads to the adverse neurobehavioral outcomes for their children (Nass & Frank, 2010). Research conducted by Patricia Brennan in 1999 revealed that for mothers who smoked during their pregnancy, there was an increased likelihood of having children who persistent offenders were rather just being delinquent in their teenage years (Katz, 2003). The underlying cause was that when a mother smoked during her pregnancy, the associated complications during child delivery made the child develop defiant and even criminal behavior after birth. They studied 4,000 Danish males with mothers that had reported smoking while in the third trimester of their pregnancy and the results were similar regardless of the socio-economic factors that were suspected to be the cause of such behaviors (Katz, 2003).
Another study was done by the Illinois University in Collaboration with the University of New York and Massachusetts and the National Institute of Mental Health in 2006 among 93 children between their first and second birthdays. The results provided a link between smoking during pregnancy, and early childhood behavioral problems and 44 of these children had tobacco smoke exposure before their birth with approximately half of the mothers of these children reporting to have smoked over half a pac...