Birth Defects
“Risky Baby Business: Causes and Effects” In this paper, I am going to focus on a couple high risk topics that can cause birth defects in an unborn child. I will discuss the effects of smoking, alcohol consumption, illicit drugs and prescription drug use. Letting people know more of the causes and outcomes of these examples is important because children are always our future and if birth defects and death can be prevented, should we not present hardship to them even before their first breath. It is important to keep letting women and men both know how substances can affect and unborn child. The more people that know the more likely that baby has a chance. To at least get a little knowledge to someone who doesn’t know is all I could ask. First off, smoking causes great risks to women and children both. The nicotine, carbon monoxide and numerous other poisons inhaled from a cigarette are carried through the blood stream and directly to the baby. Smoking while pregnant lowers the amount of oxygen available to the mother and child, increases the baby’s heart rate and heightens the chances of miscarriage and stillbirth. Not to mention it can cause the baby to be born premature, to have a low birth weight and/or develop lung problems. Secondhand smoke, the smoke that burns of the end of a cigarette or cigar, actually contains more harmful substances that the smoke inhaled by the smoker.
The second risk is alcohol consumption. Although an adult body can manage alcohol in their blood stream, a baby’s little body isn’t able to handle it. Your liver works hard to
Howard 2 break down the alcohol in your blood but a baby’s liver is significantly smaller and cannot manage it. Alcohol can lead the baby to have serious health conditions called
Fatal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder or FASD. The most serious of