Shocking Scan Reveals What Smoking Can Do To An Unborn Baby

The images above are what a healthy unborn baby looks like in the womb whilst the images below show what the unborn baby of a smoking mother looks like.

You may think that they look similar but in study carried out involving 20 pregnant woman, 4 of whom, on average, smoked 14 cigarettes a day – there appears to be a correlation between the delayed development of a foetus’ nervous system and whether the carrier smokes.

Although the test needs to be larger to gain any significant evidence, it is apparent that the baby of a smoker will touch it’s face and open it’s mouth far more than a baby of a non-smoker. This is potentially a concern as a baby will stop doing this as much when it gains more control of its nervous system.

Dr Reissland, from Durham’s Psychology Department, said: ‘A larger study is needed to confirm these results and to investigate specific effects, including the interaction of maternal stress and smoking.’

Co-author Professor Brian Francis, of Lancaster University, added: ‘Technology means we can now see what was previously hidden, revealing how smoking affects the development of the foetus in ways we did not realise.”