Why smoking is worse for women's health?

This is a serious and unique public health issue with an enormous consequence not only for women's health but also for their families. Women's not only share most of the health risk of smoking with men (such as cancer of the lungs and gastrointestinal tract) but also face additional health hazards like adverse pregnancy outcomes and increase cardiovascular risk.

                             Women smoking

Here are four health effects of smoking that made it worse for women.
 

1. Smoking affects fertility and hurts the unborn baby

Why blow it up in smoke? Women smokers are at greater risk of infertility. They may face difficulty in conceiving, suffer miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies. They may give birth to pre-term low weight or Intra-Uterine growth restriction babies, as the nicotine from tobacco reduces the placental blood flow and impedes fetal brain development.

According to many gynecologists, the risk of stillbirth, neonatal death ,and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is also increased because maternal smoking raises catecholamine production which can lead to under perfusion of the foetoplacental unit. This is even if you quit as soon as it is conceived.

2. Cigarettes go to the heart

Women smokers are at greater risk of heart attacks and paralytic brain strokes. The hormone estrogen is naturally heart-protective when estrogen levels are diminished, HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) is reduced and triglycerides go up.

As a result, the clotting tendency of blood increases ,and the heart muscle becomes electrically unstable. The natural protection that women have against the atherosclerotic disease of the blood vessel and heart attack before menopause is removed by tobacco smoke.

3. An increased risk of breast cancer

Most studies on the impact of smoking on women are based on populations in the west. The breast cancer now generation study tracked 1,13,000 women in the UK for 40 years and found that those who smoke maybe 14% most likely to develop cancer compared to never smokers.

The health effects of smoking in a population become pronounced after 20 to 30 years of the habit adopted by a sizable percentage of young adults. With the number of female smokers increasing in India, there is no reason to think that they would be spared the serious health effects.

4. Osteoporosis can sneak up

Oestrogen is depleted in post-menopausal women, smoking can cause further suppression in the production of hormones and can lead to an early onset of bone mineral density reduction.

A research paper in The British medical journal claims that women who smoke one pack of cigarettes a day, often experience a loss of bone density equaling 5% to 10% more than non-smokers by the time they reach menopause.

Fun fact

Despite the number of female smokers growing at a faster rate than male smokers in the last two decades awareness campaign show that men smoking.

It isn't every waste effort: the prevalence of cigarette smoking among the men in India has fallen to 23% in this decade from 33.8% in the 1980s. Smoking among women doubles during the corresponding period.

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