Effect on Offspring

Tobacco smoke has yet another bad effect. The evidence from studies pursued independently in at least nine separate countries all points to the same stark conclusion: Something in the tobacco smoke inhaled by pregnant women adversely affects the fetus, often with tragic consequences.

Outgoing United States Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld lamented: “Fetal wastage is a terrible tragedy.” He explained: “The mother who smokes subjects the unborn child to the adverse effects of tobacco and as a result we are losing babies.” According to the Public Health Service report released in January 1973, about 4,600 stillbirths a year in the United States can probably be accounted for by the smoking of their mothers.

The Royal College of Physicians in Great Britain said: “There is no doubt that smoking during pregnancy retards the unborn baby’s growth. It has been found that mothers who smoked during pregnancy were more likely to have a miscarriage, to have a still-born baby, or one which died soon after birth.” A massive study of 17,400 births in Britain revealed that even smoking one cigarette a day during pregnancy affects fetal development.

Do you think that a mother who smokes is showing love to her unborn baby when her habit may result in the sickness or even death of her child?

Dr. Donn Mosser, a Minneapolis physician, notes another significant effect that the smoking by parents has upon their offspring. “If a mother smokes,” he said, “it about doubles the probability that the children in the family will smoke.” Is it proper to engage in a dangerous habit that children are likely to adopt? If young ones developed lung cancer as a result, would you not bear some responsibility for this?

The Bible commands: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt. 22:39) Yet the smoker does harm to himself, as well as to his neighbor. How clear it is, therefore, that you simply cannot smoke and still love your neighbor!

Nor do small children escape the harm done by tobacco smoke. The JAMA of January 15, 1973, drew attention to a study that “found that smokers’ children are ill more frequently than nonsmokers’ children, usually because of respiratory disease.” Children who have respiratory allergies are especially affected adversely by cigarette smoke.