Hazards Mount for the Unborn—Prudent Life Styte Rewarded

THE 1971 EDITION of The Health Consequences of Smoking contains an extensive survey of world medical literature on the effects on the unborn child of the mother's smoking during pregnancy. One phase of the review, reporting on more than 100,000 births, concludes: "Maternal smoking during pregnancy exerts a retarding influence on fetal growth as manifested by decreased infant birth weight and an in creased incidence of prematurity. . . .

There is strong evidence to support the view that smoking mothers have a significantly greater number of unsuccessful pregnancies due to stillbirth and neonatal [newborn] death as compared to nonsmoking mothers." ¹ A seven-year follow-up of the British perinatal (occurring about the time of birth) study "found that the children of mothers who were heavy smokers during pregnancy showed significantly decreased height, retardation of reading ability, and lower ratings on social adjustment than children of nonsmoking mothers. The differences were independent of such factors as social class, age of mother, and parity [number of pregnancies]." ²

Dr. Jacob Yerushalmy of the University of California, has now shown that the weight of babies is lower than aver age when the father smokes, regardless of whether or not the mother smokes.³ And Dr. J. Fedrick, in the above-mentioned British perinatal study, found 7.3 congenital heart defects in 1,000 children of smoking mothers and only 4.7 in 1,000 children of nonsmoking mothers.⁴

Dr. Raymond Denson, a Saskatoon psychiatrist, has reported that 75 per cent of the mothers of a group of hyperactive children he studied smoked heavily during their pregnancies. He discovered a relationship between the number of cigarettes they smoked and the amount of their hemoglobin that had combined with deadly carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke, and reasoned that the resulting lack of adequate oxygen supply for the brains of the developing babies caused the hyperactivity they manifested in child hood. ⁵

Effects of Maternal Alcohol Use on Offspring

It is only very recently that scientists have recognized that a mother's drinking also affects her offspring.

In 1972 Ulleland noted low birth weight and delayed growth and development in these children.⁶ In 1973 Jones described for the first time a typical pattern of problems characteristic of these children of alcoholic mothers. ⁷ This has been called the fetal alcohol syndrome. Since then, numerous other such cases have been reported, the latest being a German study conducted by Dr. F. Mujewski and his co-workers at the University of Tubingen and published in Munchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, No. 50, December, 1976.

The fetal alcohol syndrome includes growth deficiency, delay in development, deformities of the head, face, and limbs, defects of the heart and sex organs, poor muscle function, and blood-vessel tumors.

In Jones's original study, when the alcoholic mothers' babies who died near birth were added to those who had the fetal alcohol syndrome, there was a 43 percent adverse outcome of the pregnancies. Of the children who had lived to age 7 and could be followed, the highest IQ was 79 and most were much lower.

Effects of Maternal Drug Use on Offspring

Maternal drug use especially demonstrates how the pains and effects of parental abuse can be passed on to "the third and fourth generation."

Heroin quickly and easily passes through the placenta and enters the baby's bloodstream. This gives the baby varying degrees of asphyxia that can be detected by changes in the rate and rhythm of its heart. Dr. Carl Zelson, director of the New York City Neonatal Narcotic Addiction Program, has re ported on 623 heroin-addicted mothers who came to delivery under their care. ⁸

Within the first four days after delivery these unfortunate newborns began to show withdrawal symptoms. In decreasing order, Zelson found the fol lowing symptoms: tremors, irritability, hyper activity, vomiting, high-pitched cry, difficult breathing, sneezing, fever, diarrhea, convulsions, poor feeding. Unless the heroin addiction of the babies was recognized and promptly treated, they developed dehydration and acidosis, and died.

Drug use in the mother also often results in small birth weight. Zelson showed that 48 percent of the babies were of premature birth weight.

Fifty percent of the addicted babies needed from 10 to 20 days of treatment, and 27 percent needed from 20 to 40 days of care. In the early period of the study, 93 percent of the babies died. Now, with better recognition and treatment, 96 to 98 percent can be expected to survive.

These infants later have a high frequency of problems such as abnormal sleep and behavior. There is also evidence of growth disturbances and ab normal metabolism. There is a real risk that these children may be more easily addicted if they are exposed to narcotics.

Now that methadone is being used by more than 50,000 heroin addicts in some 300 methadone maintenance programs in the United States, thousands of pregnant women are receiving daily oral doses of this narcotic drug.⁹

After studying 45 mothers on methadone who delivered under his care, Kandall concluded that these babies had more severe and prolonged symptoms of withdrawal than infants of heroin-addicted mothers. To make matters worse, a number of these children did not show any symptoms until they were between two and four weeks old, and one died at home. Kandall believes the danger of complications induced in newborns is a major public-health hazard. ¹⁰

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was first reported to damage human chromosomes by Cohen in 1967.¹¹ Since that time numerous studies have been carried out, sometimes with conflicting results.

Jacobson studied 140 women who were using LSD prior to and/or during pregnancy, at the Washington, D.C., Children's Hospital. Eighty-three babies were born alive, ⁸ had major birth defects. There were 65 abortions, of which 53 were induced and 12 were spontaneous. Four embryos from the therapeutic abortions showed gross anomalies. Forty-three percent of pregnancies of three months or less ended in spontaneous abortions. Four of 8 pregnancies in a sequence resulted in defective embryos or infants. ¹²

The results of marijuana as a cause of birth defects are also conflicting. The most carefully done and impressive study that does show increased chromosome breakage also shows decreased resistance to infections. ¹³

The risk of using prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications during pregnancy is also becoming increasingly recognized. Dr. Bleyer studied 67 private patients during their last three months of pregnancy. These mothers used an average of 8.7 different drugs during the study period. Eighty percent were taken without medical supervision, and the remaining 20 percent were prescribed. The drugs used included vitamin preparations (taken by 86 percent of the patients), aspirin (69 percent), antacids (60 percent), diuretics (30 per cent), cathartics (26 percent), antibiotics (16 percent), antihistamines (14 per cent), and barbiturates (12 percent). ¹⁴

During the first three months of pregnancy the risk of medications passing through the placenta and harming or deforming the fetus are greatest. Even before the first missed period and before the mother recognizes that she is pregnant damage may be done. ¹⁵

In the very early stages (first three weeks) the deforming agent usually kills the embryo. From the third week through the third month, during which time the organs are being formed, specific deformities can be predicted and are related to the time the agent is given and the amount. (High doses may kill; low doses may only deform.)

An ever-increasing number of medications taken by the pregnant mother have been incriminated as causing problems to the child before and even during its first weeks after birth. The list includes: heroin and morphine, some anesthetics, antibiotics, sulfa drugs, anticancer drugs, anticoagulants, drugs for diabetes, quinine, antithyroid drugs, depressants (downers), diuretics (water pills), stimulants (uppers), sex hormones, and a miscellany of some vitamins and other drugs.

The only rational conclusion is that "during pregnancy even well-known drugs should be administered only when absolutely indicated." ¹⁶

Effects of Maternal Emotions on Offspring

In the first decade of this century Ellen White wrote of the thoughts and feelings of the mother and their effects on the unborn child, stating: "The thoughts and feelings of the mother will have a powerful influence upon the legacy she gives her child. If she allows her mind to dwell upon her own feelings, if she indulges in selfishness, if she is peevish and exacting, the disposition of her child will testify to the fact. Thus many have received as a birthright almost unconquerable tendencies to evil. The enemy of souls . . . will bring his temptations to bear upon the mother, knowing that if she does not resist him, he can through her affect her child." ¹⁷ Now the scientific circles are beginning to say the same thing. "Emotional disturbances such as anxiety can adversely affect pregnancy, particularly the well-being of the fetus. Anxiety-prone mothers are more likely to give birth to infants of low birth weight than mothers who are emotionally stable. Maternal anxiety has also been implicated in an increase in the incidence of pregnancy complications, habitual abortion, and stillbirths." ¹⁸

The OB-GYN Observer of May, 1971, described a study done on single pregnant girls who carried their babies to term but with tremendous hostility. Observing the children afterwards, the author said, "Psychonoxious elements affect the child by arousing sublethal factors in the mother." These were "aroused psychosomatically in unhappy and resentful girls."

Effects of Maternal Viral Disease on Offspring

Then there are the effects of virus diseases of the pregnant woman on the developing baby, as was dramatically brought to public attention by birth defects in children born to women who had rubella (German measles) during pregnancy. More recently obstetricians and pediatricians have a growing concern that other viruses pose an equally threatening hazard to the unborn child. They wonder about such diseases as mumps, influenza, herpes simplex, and others.

How important are good habits and good mental attitudes during that most important period of pregnancy! Once again we have seen inspired writings vindicated as modern science continues to uncover evidence to support the concept of prenatal influences.