Smoking And Women

Effects Of Smoking In Women

• New research has found that breathing difficulty due to smoking is more prevalent in women than men.
• The risk of stroke is higher in pregnant women who smoke or have smoked before pregnancy because there is an increased blood pressure, increased blood loss (during delivery) and a high production of blood clotting factors. Strokes have symptoms such as severe headaches, trouble speaking and vision impairment.
• Another very serious consequence is with women who use oral contraceptives (or the pill) as a measure for controlling childbirth. They run the risk of cardiovascular diseases, such as blood clots, considerably more than the others. A mild increase in blood pressure is also noted and highly significant.
• Pregnant women also run the risk of having mentally impaired babies, abortions and still births etc if they continue smoking till their pregnancies. Others would include having a premature or low weight baby.
• Smoking right after delivering a baby can cause the secondhand smoke to reach your child and cause harmful effects of the child as well. For example, if a woman smokes while breastfeeding her child, the milk will contain impurities and will adversely affect the child.
• Smoking in women can cause breast cancer. Oral cancer is more common though. The risk is found to be higher in premenopausal active smokers and postmenopausal passive ones. The reason being a gene called NAT2 that responds very slowly to removing the toxins from the body, thereby causing damage to the cells.
• Osteoporosis or brittle bones can be the result of excessive cigarette smoke.
• PID or Pelvic Inflammatory Disease is very high in women smokers. What happens here is that the reproductive system gets infected with virus, bacteria or fungus. This leads to an inflammation (swelling) of the uterus, fallopian tubes or ovaries.
• Fertility issues such as a decreased ovulatory response as well as impairment of the zygote are very common in women who smoke. The cervical fluid maybe altered due to the chemicals in the smoke making it toxic to the sperm. The relationship between infertility and smoking has not been confirmed but statistics have shown that 72% of women smokers have infertility issues.
• Teenage women are seen to be more affected in the long run as its affects menstruation. There might be bleeding difficulties such as abnormal bleeding, amenorrhea (no periods) and vaginal discharges.