Smoking and Women’s Health - 10 Hazards to Consider

If you are a smoking woman, you might have already had a history of infertility and, most probably, suffer from numerous unpleasant complications of smoking that severely affect women’s health. Before you reach for one more cigarette, please, consider the following scientifically proven facts:

1. In accordance with numerous studies, women’s smoking has been linked to an increased incidence of cervical dysplasia, or Abnormal Pap Smear. A toxic by-product of tobacco, called cotinine, is often found in the cervical mucus of smokers. If you have smoked for many years, be ready to accept that your mucosal immunity in the cervical and vaginal areas is already negatively affected by this unhealthy habit.

2. Women-smokers have a higher risk of developing vulval and cervical cancers.

3. If you are taking oral contraceptives, you should know that cigarettes, combined with birth control pills, can seriously affect your overall health. A great number of women who have problems adjusting to the side effects of oral contraceptives are smokers. Smokers should never use birth control pills after the age of thirty five.

4. Smoking, as it has been shown in many studies, poisons the ovaries and negatively effects various aspects of reproduction, including conception, labour, and delivery.

5. The rate of miscarriages among women-smokers is twice as high as that of non-smokers. These miscarriages are often of absolutely healthy, genetically normal fetuses. In addition, smoking substantially decreases your success in any form of fertility treatments.

6. Smoking in pregnancy can lead to low birth weight of infants. Besides, babies of smoking mothers have a doubled risk of sudden death due to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Therefore, if you are going to conceive and looking forward to giving birth to a healthy baby, get help in stopping your harmful habit of smoking.

7. Children of smoking mothers have an increased risk of developing allergies and respiratory illnesses, such as asthma.

8. Smoking is a great risk factor in developing early osteoporosis in women, even if your intake of calcium and Vitamin D is high.

9. Smoking ages the skin and makes women look much older than they are.

10. Lung cancer is number one cancer killer of women. As we all know very well, the major risk factor in developing lung cancer is prolonged smoking..

Quit now…

Deanna Campbell