Teratogens and New Born Babies

A teratogen is any substance such as alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, bacteria, and viruses. If these substances are ingested by a woman during pregnancy it can interfere with the development of the fetus and can lead to multiple issues during or after the pregnancy. These issues could be a miscarriage, preterm labor, stillbirth (birthing an infant that has died in the womb after 20 weeks of pregnancy), or birth defects. While all of these things can happen it depends on different factors such as the toxin that the fetus is being exposed to, how long the exposure lasted, the amount/ dosage of the substance, and how long the pregnancy has been going on. One of the birth defects is called fetal alcohol syndrome. This is where alcohol could cause a baby to have a misproportioned head, lifelong brain abnormalities, or mental retardation and that is just due to alcohol, there are different side effects for each substance. Now I will get into the story about one specific teratogen.

There was a woman that lived down the street from me and when she found out she was pregnant she was about 7 weeks into the pregnancy. Before she became pregnant this woman was a consistent smoker. She had been smoking for years and there was no sign of stopping, but once she found out about the pregnancy she claimed that she would stop. For the first 2 weeks she knew about the pregnancy it was going well but stopping cold turkey can be difficult. Eventually, she fell back into her old habit and could not give it up. Sadly this ended up affecting the baby and her child was born with a cleft lip (a birth defect in the baby’s upper lip that doesn’t completely form and has a hole in it). This was due to the cigarettes that she was smoking in this case the teratogen is nicotine. Luckily a cleft lip can be fixed surgically but can cost a lot of money. Eventually, the baby’s lip got fixed and now looks normal with a little scar below the nostril. Also the mother ended up quitting smoking has not smoked again since.