728x90
my iParenting
From Our Sponsors
e-newsletters
Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters

new terms of use
new privacy policy
award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Home › Articles › Fatherhood › Pregnancy Precautions

Pregnancy Precautions

Determining the Safety of Your Daily Grind

By Shel Franco

Pages:  1  2  3  

pregnant mother and child On an average day, you stumble out of bed and slip on your running shoes. Then, there's a hot shower, a cup of coffee, a stressful day on the job, no lunch, a glass of wine with dinner and, finally, bed-time -- much later than you had planned.

Sounds pretty routine to most people, but certain components to the average day can be harmful to the pregnant woman and her growing child.

Smoking
The media is abuzz about the harmful side effects of cigarette smoking and second-hand smoke. Experts now agree that smoking during pregnancy can deprive growing fetuses of life sustaining elements such as oxygen and other nutrients. Is it any surprise, then, that Dr. Ed Shaxted, an obstetrician and gynecologist in the United Kingdom, would list smoking as the top activity to stop during pregnancy?

After nine years of "lighting up," Michelle Marie Alcido, of Houston, Texas, discovered she was pregnant. "As soon as I found out that I was going to have a baby, I threw my cigs away and I was done," she says. And as an added bonus, her husband -- a smoker of 15 years -- quit, too.

For some women, the knowledge that they are pregnant gives them enough power to quit on the spot. "[The] incentive of the pregnancy made it easy [to quit] most of the time," says Crystal Porter, of Springfield, Ill. "The night I took the home pregnancy test and it showed positive, I pushed the pack away from me and said, 'I quit.'"

For others, dads-to-be included, a gradual approach is more realistic. "[My husband] used the tapering method," Alcido says. "He reduced his smoking by one cigarette every three or four days until he was smoking no more."


Pages:  1  2  3  

Want to see more?

Comments

There are no comments for this article yet.Be the first to add a comment.

Post As:
Enter your comment below:
Title
Comment Text
CAPTCHA
Please note that any comments submitted become the property of Disney Family / iParenting and can be edited and posted at our discrection.