Smoking during breastfeeding: harm, consequences, how to combine, the opinion of doctors

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Smoking a young mother in our time has become not uncommon, but a cruel reality. Cruel to himself and the baby, who seems to be getting full-fledged feeding, but suffers from harmful substances dissolved in the milk. It is necessary to understand, than it is dangerous smoking of mum for the child, and in what strongly new mothers are mistaken.

Smoking during lactation

According to statistics, almost half of women who smoke continue this harmful occupation during lactation, and some smoke even during pregnancy. Despite the warning of experts on breastfeeding and pediatricians, many can not leave smoking even for the sake of their own baby. Perhaps this is due to ignorance of the consequences and complications of such ill-considered behavior.

For a baby who is breastfed, it is dangerous that nicotine and tar penetrate perfectly into breast milk, as well as other biological fluids. But how does this affect the baby and does it harm milk with nicotine?

All harmful components are introduced into the milk about 30 minutes after the cigarette is smoked. The half-life of nicotine and tar is one and a half hours. After three hours, the quality of milk is restored, but not completely. A complete excretion still does not happen, and even during this period the child will receive some portion of pathogenic substances, albeit small. It is worth noting and the unpleasant smell of milk smoker: the child is forced to eat this foul-smelling liquid, and some babies even give up breast permanently.

Myths about smoking at HS

Misconceptions among smokers are incredibly popular. Many of them, in fact, are justification for the harm done to the child, but the danger does not decrease. The prerequisite for the formation of certain myths was the WHO's statement that smoking with breastfeeding is better than a complete refusal to feed.

It is worthwhile to consider the main myths on this topic:

1. Milk is so healthy and nutritious that all substances from the cigarette in it are neutralized. At the root of the wrong opinion: absolutely all the ingredients of food, medicine, alcohol and nicotine become part of the composition of breast milk. Therefore, everything that got into the mother's body goes into the baby's body. Also, many children are passive smokers literally from birth, because parents do not care about their health and smoke right in the apartment.
2. Nicotine gradually gets into milk, so there is no danger to the baby. It is a myth. Nicotine penetrates sufficiently into the milk, after which it is absorbed into the bloodstream of the baby after feeding. It has a similar effect on the baby, as on the mother herself - it disrupts the work of the heart, blood vessels, nervous system, kidneys, leads to a drop in immunity and to a number of other problems. Given the weight of the child, for a negative impact on the body he needs much less nicotine, and therefore he suffers a full harm.
3. With the volume of milk, this habit is unrelated. It is not true. Nicotine and other substances inhibit the production of prolactin, which is synthesized by the pituitary gland and is responsible for breastfeeding. Tentatively, milk production falls by a quarter, and completely lactation ceases after 4-6 months. If the mother smokes immediately after the birth of the child or does not stop doing it before the birth, then it will be difficult to establish a normal lactation.
4. The quality of milk for smokers is the same as that of other women. Myth. Hands and mouth after smoking have an unpleasant smell. Exactly the same "flavor" will be in breast milk, but with less intensity. This smell is not pleasant to everyone, so the children of smokers often refuse their breasts.

Influence on the child

If the mother does not give up smoking while breastfeeding, the child will bring significant harm. Feeding during pregnancy in itself leads to the birth of a baby with hypoxia, a weak, sometimes even premature. Further, the mother continues to harm the baby by inhaling the smoke, as a result of which all substances from it quickly find themselves in the baby's body.

After dissolving in the child's blood, nicotine exerts an exciting effect, and this happens after each new portion of cigarettes. As a result, there are unpleasant consequences from the brain - the baby becomes restless, capricious, sleeps badly, often cries.

Thus, with the addiction of the mother, the baby smokes with her, but does it not of his own free will and with great harm to his health. When the mother quits smoking, the child has symptoms of nicotine withdrawal( withdrawal syndrome) for about a month - screaming, capriciousness, refusal of food, nausea. Could the pleasure of a cigarette be commensurate with such influence and all the ensuing consequences? Hardly.

Possible consequences of

The most serious danger lies in the occurrence of the syndrome of sudden infant death, which occurs only up to a year-old age and is more than three times registered in babies born to smoking moms. If both parents smoke in the house, the risk is 5 times higher! In a dream, the child can stop breathing, and this will not be associated with diseases and organic pathologies.

Other possible consequences of smoking with HS are:

1. The child may develop malnutrition, poor weight gain, in growth due to poor nutrient absorption.
2. Babe constantly suffers from colds due to increased sensitivity of the bronchi and upper respiratory tract to viruses and bacteria. This causes complicated course of even simple ARVI, which end in sinusitis, otitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, laryngitis with suffocation attacks.
3. There is a transition of catarrhal diseases to a chronic form. Of course, this also happens in children born by non-smoking mothers, but in children who are "lucky" to receive nicotine with food, chronic diseases are observed an order of magnitude more often.
4. Children regularly have attacks of colic in the abdomen, stool disorders become a common occurrence, like vomiting, nausea. This is due to the harmful effects of nicotine on the gastrointestinal tract.
5. Babies can develop early deviations from the cardiovascular system up to the occurrence of heart failure( more often - with the presence of congenital pathologies that under the influence of smoking quickly progress).From the side of the child's heart, disturbances in rhythm( arrhythmia) up to life-threatening ones can also be disturbing.
6. Children of smokers are more likely to suffer from allergies, which can become chronic and go to far from harmless forms - bronchial asthma, allergic laryngitis.

In the future, mother's smoking during breastfeeding also carries a risk of negative consequences for her son or daughter. Studies convincingly prove that such children themselves start smoking early - already in their teens. They suffer increased irritability and aggressiveness, they learn worse, because they have a bad memory, they are inattentive. Such children - up to 80% of those who received nicotine as an "additive" to breast milk.

Is it possible to combine incompatible?

WHO states that when smoking no more than 5 cigarettes a day, it is better not to quit breastfeeding, since the transition to artificial feeding will be more harmful than smoking. Undoubtedly, this formulation can not be used as an excuse for one's own actions, and the lack of smoking is an ideal condition for continuing lactation.

But what to do to those who smoke and continue to feed, despite the persuasion of doctors and information on the Internet? There are ways to ease the burden on the baby's body.

The rules are as follows:

• Reduce the number of cigarettes to 5 per day, or at least reduce their number between 9 am and 21 pm, when the prolactin index is growing most actively.
• It's better to smoke right after the feeding took place - so the nicotine gets into the body of the child less. After a smoke break you can feed only after 2 hours
• You need to drink a lot of liquid - this will help nicotine to be excreted from the mother's body faster
• You need to eat well, because the quantity of valuable substances will depend on the quality of milk, which is very lame from the presence of nicotine.
• Never smoke so that smoke gets to the baby - passive smoking is even more harmful than tar and nicotine from breast milk.
• Clothes after smoking need to be changed, mouth - rinse, teeth - clean, hands - wash. Only then it is necessary to approach the child.

And the last tip. It is better for smoking mums to change a simple cigarette to an electronic one. Her harm is somewhat less, since in the composition of only nicotine, there are no tar and other carcinogens. But it's better to give up smoking, especially since your own child's health is worth it!