Take it from me. One of the greatest parts of being an expectant mother is when you go in for your first ultrasound.
There's so much anticipation and so many ways to be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps you'll discover that you're actually having twins, or maybe your baby will give you an unexpected thumbs up. For me, it was always such a joy finding out whether I'd be having a boy or a girl.
Ultrasounds don't always bring positive news, of course. They can also notify you of anything going wrong with your unborn baby. Ultrasounds are incredibly important in prenatal care, and technological advancements continue to make these ultrasound images more and more revealing.
One of the latest trends in ultrasounds is 4-D imaging. You not only get a 3-D image of your unborn child, but you also get a full moving image — like a movie.
Recently, researchers at Durham University released a study comparing the 4-D ultrasounds of fetuses whose mothers smoked and others whose mother didn't smoke.
It's shouldn't be surprising to anyone that the smoking mothers were hurting their children, but exactly how it affected them must be seen.
Please, please SHARE this important story with anyone you know who smokes, might be expecting, or wants to become a mother. It's important information that shouldn't be ignored.
The study showed that fetuses whose mother smoke (on top) tended to move their hands to cover their faces or heads and that they had 58-percent more mouth movements in the uterus.
The fetuses whose mothers smoke moved around considerably more than the others.
This is important because studies have shown that a fetus with increased movements causes increased stress in the mother, which then in turn causes increased stress in the fetus.
Additionally, as a fetus matures it begins to move less and less. The agitated movements of the fetuses whose mothers smoke indicate that the nicotine might be affecting the fetuses' development.
Smoking while pregnant can impede your child's development, or cause them great agitation.
Though it might seem obvious that smoking is bad for a fetus, it still happens.
The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has reported that nearly 10 percent of expectant mothers admitted to smoking during the last three months of pregnancy.
Smoking during pregnancy can lead to low birth weight, premature births, or miscarriages.
Please SHARE this important information. Thought it might seem obvious to us, you never know who needs to be told.
