Pregnancy Drugs – What Do They Do?
Index
Pregnancy is a time of total surrender, commitment and above all a lot of responsibility. During the 9 months of gestation it is necessary to redouble care with food, medications used, physical effort and even habitually attended.
Of course, pregnancy is not a disease and you do not have to give up everything you did before becoming pregnant, but some choices and certain care will be necessary if you want your baby to develop well and healthy. For fans of nights, drunk with drinks and even some “recreational” drugs to give a night out it is good to be aware of the consequences and effects of drugs in pregnancy. What may seem like simple amusement at the moment can bring damage and loss for life .
Conscious Pregnancy
Every woman who is giving birth needs to know that everything that enters her body also comes into contact with the baby either through the placenta or through the bloodstream. Through food, drinks, medication and even drugs whatever it is, it puts the baby in contact with these substances. The use of drugs makes the baby a drug addict without even having the choice of not wanting to use.
IMPORTANT: After birth, babies generated by women who are adept at drugs tend to be more agitated, to cry more and without reason, and this is part of “drug abstinence”.
That is why it is necessary to be aware of each action during the gestational period and if any type of drug is used, it is time to stop. And we’re not just talking about marijuana, cocaine, crack and the like, but drugs like cigarettes and alcohol too. There will always be someone who says that marijuana is a plant, so it is natural and cannot harm the pregnant woman and the baby, much less cause the drug’s effects on pregnancy.
Therefore, several recent studies have proved that the opposite is true. Even if they are born with a normal appearance, the effects will appear throughout your life. Symptoms such as behavioral, learning and attention difficulties are some characteristics observed in children generated by women who used drugs during pregnancy.
Drugs and Their Effects
Any chemical substance can affect fetal development and still generate problems that the child will carry throughout his life. Each chemical in its particularity affects a part of the baby’s body and development.
Extasy: The famous drug of ballads that promises to liven up your night like no other is responsible for the greatest number of cardiac malformations in babies and the disability of some members. It is still identified as causing long-term memory problems and attention disorders.
Cocaine: Cocaine, well known for its stimulating power, strongly affects the nervous system, causing irreversible damage to its users. When used in pregnancy, especially in the first months, it can cause miscarriages . With the use of the drug throughout pregnancy, the drug’s effect on pregnancy can lead to placental detachment, putting the life of the mother and baby at risk.
The effects of the drug on the baby, on the other hand, are even more intense, since its use is related to a large number of cases of intense anomalies in the baby’s brain, face, heart, intestine, eyes and genitalia. In addition to the withdrawal crises that are forced to face soon after birth, due to the lack of the substance in the blood, which can take up to 10 weeks of life to normalize. Cocaine use can still lead to premature birth .
Marijuana- According to statistics, marijuana is the illicit drug most used by pregnant women worldwide. With the argument of being an herb, which makes it natural thousands of women in the world put their baby’s life still in the womb at risk for simple enjoyment. The use of marijuana is not related to cases of malformation of the fetus, but it is directly linked to the increase in the frequency and intensity of uterine contractions during pregnancy that can result in spontaneous abortions.
It was also observed that babies generated by women adept at marijuana during pregnancy were born smaller and with low weight indexes, a situation that was normalized during the first year of life of the babies. Other symptoms such as tremors and spasms indicating neurological problems and difficulty in sucking at the time of breastfeeding were also observed.
However, within all of the signs reported above, the ones with the greatest number were babies with memory, reasoning and attention deficit problems, mainly during school season. There were also reports of hyperactivity, anxiety and neurological disorders.
Cigarette- The effects of cigarettes are evident to any human being. In pregnancy, these effects triple in importance because it affects not only one life, but two. The use of cigarettes during pregnancy increases the risks of miscarriage, premature birth, increases the chances of sudden death of the newborn and is also responsible for the birth of babies with underweight.
Alcohol – The effects of alcohol on the life of the baby generated in alcoholism can be intense. They may be born smaller than normal and are more likely to develop microcephaly, have facial anomalies, be born with heart problems in addition to intellectual disability. They are still exposed to the chances of having fetal alcohol syndrome soon after birth.
I am a Drug User and I became pregnant – How to Stop?
When we talk about drug users, we naturally link the fact to illegal drugs. However, here we will highlight the difficulty of users of any substance, including those that are naturally marketed as cigarettes and alcoholic beverages to leave them. Anyone with addictions, whatever he is, knows how difficult it is to abandon him .
Even if you are a casual user or totally dependent, that old story of “I’m not addicted and I stop using it whenever I want” is a real joke. It is proven that just one drink or a single use of certain substances is enough to become dependent on it. However, in order to quit drugs, it takes a single big step, WISHING TO STOP!
Nobody stops using drugs because family, boyfriend or friends want to. The desire must come from the person together with his willpower to seek help. The first step is, don’t hide from the truth after all you need help. During the consultation with your gynecologist it is essential that you speak the truth and report the type of drugs you use as well as the frequency and quantity. Doctors have an obligation to advise and maintain a full description of what they talked about inside the office.
During the consultation, the damage and effects caused by the narcotics and the ways to help you stop will be explained. If you do not have the courage to inform the doctor and the family, seek help by calling the National Anti-Drug Secretariat , at number 132 and look for alternatives to be able to leave the drugs.
There are many institutions throughout Brazil that care for chemically dependent women and when pregnant women pay even greater attention so that they can stop the drugs as soon as possible, thus reducing the risks to the health of the mother and especially the baby. Do not think that everything is lost, there is always a way out, a solution and a door to open, seek help and save your life and that of your child!
See Also: Medications in Pregnancy – Use Safely!
My name is Dr. Alexis Hart I am 38 years old, I am the mother of 3 beautiful children! Different ages, different phases 16 years, 12 years and 7 years. In love with motherhood since always, I found it difficult to make my dreams come true, and also some more after I was already a mother.
Since I imagined myself as a mother, in my thoughts everything seemed to be much easier and simpler than it really was, I expected to get pregnant as soon as I wished, but it wasn’t that simple. The first pregnancy was smooth, but my daughter’s birth was very troubled. Joana was born in 2002 with a weight of 2930kg and 45cm, from a very peaceful cesarean delivery but she had already been born with congenital pneumonia due to a broken bag not treated with antibiotics even before delivery.