Smoking during pregnancy may affect two thyroids

I know – you’ve heard it before – pregnant women shouldn’t smoke. But here’s another reason why not: smoking can have a negative effect on the mother’s thyroid and on the baby’s developing thyroid.

Your thyroid is a small gland in your neck, by what’s often called the Adam’s apple. It produces hormones essential for growth. For pregnant women, the thyroid hormone is needed – is critical for – the baby’s developing brain and nervous system. Iodine, which we take in through some foods and iodized salt, is what helps the thyroid produce the thyroid hormone. Pregnant women are encouraged to take maternal vitamins because they include iodine, which many women are lacking in their regular diet.

During the first trimester, the baby uses the mother’s thyroid hormone to grow, but then his or her own thyroid begins to kick in at the end of the first trimester, beginning of the second.

Women who have thyroid problems run a higher risk of having a miscarriage or premature baby, and the babies of women with thyroid problems run the risk of being born a low-birth-weight baby or having neurological problems.

Is there good news? Absolutely. The researchers found that women who stopped smoking saw their thyroid levels go back to those of non-smokers.

~~~