In another case of cognitive dissonance regarding the rights of pre-born children Cosmopolitan has posted an article with disturbing ultrasound images showing how pre-born babies react when their mothers smoke. In a study from Durham and Lancaster universities researchers looked at the effect of smoking on children in the womb.
The Cosmopolitan article states:
Over the course of the study, the researchers took 80 ultrasounds of 20 babies between the 24th and 36th weeks of pregnancy. Of the 20 cases, 16 babies had non-smoking mothers and four had smoking mothers. The mothers who smoked has an average of 14 cigarettes each day.
The results (above) show the babies whose moms inhaled smoke (top row) covering their faces and moving their mouths. The bottom row depicts the non-smokers. According to the Durham research, these pictures show that “fetuses whose mothers were smokers showed a significantly higher rate of mouth movements than the normal declining rate of movements expected in a fetus during pregnancy.”
The higher-than-normal mouth movements of the babies who inhaled smoke (resembling what the Telegraph calls “grimacing”) is further confirmation that nicotine is terrible for unborn children. This kind of behavior could indicate that the fetal central nervous system did not develop at the same rate in the babies who were exposed to smoke.
“These results point to the fact that nicotine exposure per se has an effect on fetal development over and above the effects of stress and depression,” lead author of the study Dr. Nadja Reissland commented.
It has been well documented that smoking while pregnant has detrimental effects on the developing child. This is one of the reasons why cigarette manufacturers are mandated by law to include such graphic images on their packaging.
While those who want to ensure that human beings are given the best environmental conditions possible to develop it smacks of hypocrisy that the same societal concern is not expressed regarding the intentional killing of babies before they are born; forceps and suction machines are used to inflict far more damage upon children in the womb than smoking.