Timothy Griffiths 1

Timothy Griffiths
Ms. Surenyan-Kresh
English 100
October 15, 2014
Children of Smoke
A world full of misfits, this is one way to call the people that live in this world. People
who would make mistakes without knowing the consequences. Or, do it purposely in order to
fulfill their own desires without a care of the world. The topic that relates to these type of desires
is how mothers would make the mistake or decision to use drugs during pregnancy; with or
without the knowledge of how it would affect the child in the womb, and how this child would
have a hard future ahead of him because the affects that would have on the infants body.
Smoking, drinking alcohol, and even doing illegal substances would make the this child not
perform to his or her full potential, and throughout this essay there will be facts that would prove
my conjecture of mothers and fathers that would make this tragic mistake for the life of a
defenseless infant.
Before going on with all of the research that would prove my thesis, I want to tell you a
story. A story of a mother, father, and two children. Everything was going alright for this family,
they went camping and they had fun at amusement parks. But there is one detail that was missing
from what the public would be able to see from the outside, this was that mother used cigarettes
and alcohol to take away the problems that she thought about. Alcoholism, an addiction that
includes alcohol as its main front, to feel everything but nothing for the people around. She did
this when she was pregnant with those three children. Yes, three children not only two. The first
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born died of SIDS, a Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Then the next was born after a year or two
and he came out fine, while the last child came out healthy but had a speaking impediment at a
very young age. That infant that came out last, and to be a child of smoke like my professor
said in class. He was lucky to only have a speaking impediment from a young age. He had to go
through speaking training for a year or two he could actually speak fluently with the right sound
and understand what he was saying. And because of this, I am writing this essay in order to
inform you the reader more about this epidemic that parents can make for their children.

This affect that has on the body of the mother and the infant in the womb is a biological
effect of the fetus instead of a confounding effect that that would be determined of because of
some sort of third party at work here. Of course there is always an environmental factor that
plays some sort of effect on the baby, but there were many tests of how alcohol has on the
offspring, one talks about the effect of how alcohol affects the child within the womb; this article
is called Alcohol during Pregnancy and atopic dermatitis in the offspring. This article talks about
how children within the womb would have more of a chance of getting an allergic disease or
an allergy. If the mother would ingest at a dose-dependent rate or if the mother drinks constantly,
this would increase the risk of having an allergic disease. AD in early infancy could be due to
confounding by other factors. However, adjustment for several potential confounders did not
change the estimates for the effect of alcohol consumption substantially (Table 2) (Linneberg).
This quotation from that article would explain how it does not change the effects of the test that
was testing how alcohol had an effect on the body of the infant and the mother. Third party
factors are key in the birth of a child but there are other key factors that would not change from
the alcohol consumption affect would conclude this article.
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Within the womb, there are many ways that it can affect the baby, it could be physical, it
can be critical thinking, and it can also be how the brain grows while going through its life. Our
previous studies have clearly identified an effect of alcohol on brain growth and electrical
activity that is not related to maternal smoking habits or socioeconomic status.(Loffe) the
growth of the brain and the brain signals would be affected by alcohol because of the correlation
of past studies that Loffe and the other researchers committed to. These babies would come out
of the womb irritable and tremulous, suggesting that the EEG finding might represent an acute
withdrawal phenomenon which means that these babies would not be trying to absorb the things
around them as well not try to interact with world around them normally. If the child within
womb takes too much alcohol it absorbs of out of the mother, it would potentially have a
prolonged effect on the brain function, and have a long term effect on the brain that could never
be changed for the rest of the life of that child.
Although Alcohol is a big problem for mothers and their infants all around the world.
There is still one other substance that would need to be spoken for, and that is Cigarettes.
Cigarettes in our current age is starting to be regulated harshly throughout the United States
because of all of the adverse effects it has on the human body. And this is not even talking about
children within the womb that are not full sized to walk about and are not able to defend
themselves. A baby does not have these privileges of adults, they are in the belly of their mother
and rely on the parents to make the right decisions. There are many diseases that it can be given
to the child like asthma and many other diseases that a kid would have to live with their whole
lives.
Parents in this world have lots to worry about in this world we call earth. They worry
about their children more than any parents in the past would have to worry about. Because of all
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the research that gave us insight into what to do and what not to do, we rely on these researchers
in order to save the lives of many people of this world who wants their children to have the best,
and start out the best. Even though researchers, scientists, give the public all of their findings.
There are many mothers who do not care about their own offsprings wellbeing, they will neglect
their own responsibilities in order fulfill themselves instead of thinking of the child. I was one of
those children. Even though the kid in the story did not get some of the worst symptoms that
were possible for a child of smoke. He made it through life when he started out from a lower
point then the rest of the other kids did. That kid was me.

These mothers that give birth to a child have lots of responsibilities to think about
throughout their days of being pregnant, but not all of the trouble relies on the mother. Most of
the time it is the father that lightens the load of what the mother needs to do. Fathers have the
same things to live by, they should not smoke because of second hand smoke, or drink alcohol in
front of the mother to tempt them into drinking. But that is another story to talk about in the
future, we rely on our mothers in the beginning, but sometimes they make mistakes and do
something that they should not have. I was one of these kids.


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Works Cited
Linneberg, A., et al. "Alcohol During Pregnancy And Atopic Dermatitis In The Offspring."
Clinical & Experimental Allergy 34.11 (2004): 1678-1683. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Torres, Essie, et al. "Tobacco Use And Exposure To Secondhand Smoke Among Pregnant
Women In The Dominican Republic: An Exploratory Look Into Attitudes, Beliefs,
Perceptions, And Practices." Nicotine & Tobacco Research 13.12 (2011): 1220-1227.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Ioffe, S., R. Childiaeva, and V. Chernick. "Prolonged Effects Of Maternal Alcohol Ingestion On
Neonatal Electroencephalogram." Pediatrics 74.3 (1984): 330. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Hauge, Lars Johan, et al. "Smoking During Consecutive Pregnancies Among Primiparous
Women In The Population-Based Norwegian Mother And Child Cohort Study." Nicotine
& Tobacco Research 15.2 (2013): 428-434. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Oct.
2014.
Lewis, Sarah J., et al. "Fetal Alcohol Exposure And IQ At Age 8: Evidence From A Population-
Based Birth-Cohort Study." Plos ONE 7.11 (2012): 1-8. Academic Search Premier. Web.
15 Oct. 2014.
Flachmann, Kim, and Michael Flachmann. The Prose Reader. New Jersey: Pearson Education,
2014. Print .