The Facts

...on Smoking

• Smoke-filled rooms hold up to six times the pollution of a crowded highway.
• Smokers inhale about 15 percent of a cigarette’s smoke; the other 85 percent goes into the air for others to breathe.
• Pregnant women who smoke or breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to have a miscarriage or stillbirth.
• If the mother smokes while pregnant, the baby could be born too soon or weigh too little.
• Babies who breathe secondhand smoke have more colds, allergies, ear infections, flu and asthma attacks. They are also twice as likely to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
• Secondhand smoke causes 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia in children less than 18 months every year.
• Nicotine and other chemicals in cigarettes are transmitted to the baby through the smoking mother’s breast milk.
  

...on Alcohol

Drinking any sort of alcohol while pregnant can hurt your baby. The baby’s developing organs — the brain, the lungs, the heart — are affected by alcohol. A baby whose mother drank during pregnancy is more likely to have fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) or fetal alcohol effects (FAE), leaving the baby:

• Smaller than normal and vulnerable to more health conditions.
• Slow, learning-disabled, or mentally retarded.
• With disfigured faces and hearts.

...on Drugs

Using any street drugs at all means you will be less healthy while increasing the possibility of health problems for your baby.
Drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroine, methamphetamine and others have significant, negative health effects on both the mother and the baby. Some of these negative effects include:

• The mother could miscarry.
• The baby could have a stroke in utero.
• The baby may be too small at birth, be premature, or simply have trouble breathing.
• The baby could be born addicted and have to go through withdrawal.

Facts compiled from Journeyworks Publishing and the March of Dimes