Even though the overall percentage of smokers is declining, the slowest rate of decline is among women of childbearing age. Fourteen million women in the ages of 18 to 44 smoke. This is very dangerous for babies and must be stopped!

If you smoke during pregnancy it is very likely that your child will be extremely hyperactive and have ADHD. Cigarette smoke contains many poisonous substances, but studies have shown that this hyperactivity is caused by carbon monoxide building up in the baby's blood stream. This reduces the oxygen that reaches the baby and causes many problems in development.

Studies have also shown that children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are much slower in reading abilities, math abilities, speech and language abilities, intelligence levels and are not as physically developed as normal children. These children scored much lower on tests than other kids.

When mothers smoke during pregnancy, their children will probably have difficulty listening and following directions. This makes it very hard to do well in school. The more you smoke during pregnancy, the harder it is for children to pay attention.

Another dangerous aspect of prenatal smoking is that the nicotine in cigarettes damages brain cells. The thickness of the cerebral cortex is significantly reduced, the cerebral cortex neurons are smaller and the brain itself weighs less in infants whose mothers smoked. The connections between brain cells are also decreased, which makes it much more difficult for the brain to relay information to other parts of the body.

When children are exposed to prenatal smoke, they will often develop many behavioral problems as they grow older. Some of these problems include anxiety, disobedience, conduct disorders and conflict with others.

Not only will your child have problems later in life if the mother smokes, but there is also a higher risk of pregnancy complications. Women who smoke during pregnancy are much more likely to have a premature birth, low birth weight babies and stillbirths. There is also a higher rate of infant mortality. After the baby is born, the baby is at risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), asthma, respiratory infections and poor lung development.

Medical costs for births are much higher for smokers because the births are a lot more complicated. In 1987, the birth costs of non smokers was $6,544 and the birth costs of smokers was $10,894. This is almost twice as much for smokers!

Many women are now realizing how dangerous it is to smoke while pregnant. In 1987, nineteen percent of women smoked during their pregnancies and in 1995 only fourteen percent of women smoked during their pregnancies. This is a decrease of five percent. This number still needs to go down more though.

As you can see, smoking while pregnant has many bad side affects for your baby, such as pregnancy complications, asthma, hyperactivity, lower IQ, attention deficits, learning disabilities and many other problems. If you are pregnant or trying to get pregnant, you should not smoke at all. As soon as you quit smoking, you will be improving the health of your baby.