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QUESTION
I start smoking in high school (already 5-6 years). My mother told that smoking is dangerous for my reproductive system and I could have problems in future life (menstrual dysfunctions, infertility, etc.). How smoking can damage women reproductive functions?
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ANSWER from experts
If you want to be healthy, you always should know how to take care of women health. In general, women reproductive system is pretty complicated and several factors (including smoking, nicotine) can trigger dysfunctions.
Several scientific studies demonstrated that smoking can harm reproductive function in women - smoking can trigger menstrual dysfunctions, smoking can create health problems if you use birth control pills, smoking can reduce your fertility and smoking can provoke premature delivery giving birth to low-weight babies.
Smoking affects ovarian function and decreases the female hormone estrogen.
If you are planning to become pregnant, cigarette smoking can impair your fertility by adversely affecting ovulatory and tubal function, egg production and implantation.
Smoking may cause you to have irregular menstrual cycles. Women who smoke also have an earlier menopause, which may increase their risk of osteoporosis, heart disease and other conditions for which estrogen provides a protective effect.
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It was proved that women who smoked at least 20 cigarettes a day were 4 times more likely to have short menstrual cycles (less than 25 days). Women who smoked 10 or more cigarettes a day were more than twice more likely to have irregular menstrual cycles than women who did not smoke. It was also discovered that smoking women have higher frequency of anovulatory cycles (cycles without ovulation) (D.Christensen, 1999).
Compared with nonsmokers, both current and past smokers have reduced gonadotropin - hormone which stimulate ovarian functions. A history of increasing tobacco exposure was associated with decreasing serum estradiol concentrations, numbers of retrieved oocytes, and numbers of embryos (Van Voorhiset al, 1996).
So if you are smoking, always remember that women who smoke may be putting themselves at risk for hormonal dysfunctions, irregular menstrual cycles, reduced fertility (even may be infertility) and other health risks.
As female hormone estrogen is decresed in smoking women, they always could experience menstrual and fertility problems, early complicated menopause and osteoporosis.
The best solution is just stop smoking! Duration of smoking is also very important. Longer you smoke, more problems you should expect from your reproductive functions.
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