As if you didn’t have enough reasons to keep away from smoking or to quit smoking, here’s one more: smoking affects your fertility. If you haven’t yet had a baby and you smoke, brace yourself to face a number of fertility issues right from the word go. A smoker takes longer to get pregnant than a person who does not smoke. Also, chances are high that a smoker won’t get pregnant at all. At the same time, you shouldn’t rejoice if you don’t smoke and your partner does. The harm caused is almost the same. In fact, if you are around a third person who smokes for a prolonged period of time, even that can hamper your fertility. Smoke – active and passive – is bad. In women, it causes a whole host of problems right from problems with the ovaries to the fallopian tubes to the quality of eggs, etc. In women, it can seriously reduce the quality of sperm. If both partners smoke, getting pregnant will be almost impossible. Claim Your 20 Free Pregnancy Tests – Click Here
Smoking can affect the ovaries in not one but three different ways. In the first way, smoking can lead you to lose the functioning eggs more rapidly. Thus, you will reach menopause faster than you should. In other words, you will lose your fertility to age faster than the other women. In the second way, smoking can lead to lower levels of estrogen, the female reproductive hormone. Smoke contains numerous different toxins. These toxins reduce the body’s ability to produce estrogen. Thus, there is not enough to make sure that your reproductive function is normal. In the third way, smoking leads to the production of more abnormal eggs. These eggs won’t help you get pregnant at all. They may be functionally or genetically abnormal.
Fallopian tubes are of utmost importance because it is in the fallopian tube that fertilization occurs in the first place. The egg reaches the fallopian tube from the ovary and waits to get fertilized. After intercourse, the sperm reaches the egg present in the fallopian tube and fusion occurs, leading to conception. The transfer of the egg from the ovary to the fallopian tube is facilitated by small hairy structures present on the lining of the tubes. They move the egg to the right position. After fertilization, it is these structures that move the embryo to the uterus for implantation. If you smoke, all this won’t occur so smoothly because smoke will disrupt the functioning of the cells in the fallopian tubes. As a result, even though fertilization occurs, the embryo will be stuck in the fallopian tube and won’t reach the uterus. It will get implanted in the tube itself, leading to an ectopic or tubal pregnancy. Sometimes, because of abnormal functioning, the embryo is pushed out too early. This leads to a miscarriage.
Smoking affects the quantity and quality of the sperm. Smokers usually have low sperm motility and/or low sperm count, making things difficult. Also, many smokers have abnormal sperm, which don’t have the ability to fertilize the egg. The sperm may be oddly shaped or the sperm may not be able to swim properly through the vagina into the fallopian tube. Erectile dysfunction is also more common in those who smoke.
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