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Smoking Frequency During Gestation Analysis

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For the purpose of this paper, exogenous refers to any factor that the mother is exposed to from the outside environment. These include tobacco, alcohol consumption and pollution. Exploration of these factors demonstrates the scope of this issue. Looking at the mother and child alone excludes this confounding factors that are implicated in attachment behaviors. Smoking has been implicated in maternal-fetal attachment (Magee et al. 2014). These researchers examined how consumption during gestation altered this attachment relationship. Previous research has indicated that mothers reduce smoking frequency during gestation in preparation of child arrival when the impetus for self-care is high (Massey et al. 2015). The study at hand did not assess …show more content…

The attachment relationship explored here is before the child is born, this will indicate the relationship type postnatally and demonstrates the effect that factors experienced during gestation still have impact. Mother’s salivary cotinine levels were measured at week 30 and 35 of gestation and additionally 1 day after labor. Results indicated that high levels of smoking were associated with lower level of maternal-fetal attachment. Furthermore, of the children born from the tested mothers, 21% suffered from birthing complications of ranging severity. Additionally, these mothers had a higher upper limit in terms of daily cigarette smoking when compared to mothers with higher maternal-fetal attachment. Therefore, a profound relationship exists between this type of attachment and cigarette smoking. While completely preventable, evidence showing this association should be impetus enough to mandate additional prevention …show more content…

As seen earlier, smoking has an effect on attachment, coupled with alcohol consumption, the environment of child rearing may become maladaptive with these risks compounded. Additionally, when comparing these two studies it should be noted that the mothers who were reported with higher cotinine levels were overwhelmingly single and the pregnancy was more often unplanned than not (Magee et al. 2014). The study on alcohol consumption (Lu, Mumford and Petras. 2016) showed that married mothers were less likely to become a part of one of the three drinking classes. This lends to the notion of social capital being an important factor in maternal bonding. Mothers with support at home, either by marriage or cohabitation may be less likely to put their child at risk of a non-beneficial attachment style. Ideally, by having knowledge of the variables that increase likelihood of entering one the four drinking classes, preventative measures can be put in place to eliminate the risk

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