Using tobacco and tobacco-like products can affect a woman’s ability to become pregnant, have a healthy pregnancy and give birth to a healthy baby. Tobacco products can also affect a man’s ability to conceive a baby. Being exposed to second-or third-hand smoke can affect your health and the health of those around you. It’s best to avoid all tobacco and tobacco-like products.
All tobacco and tobacco-like products are harmful. Cigarettes are the only consumer product that will kill more than half of its regular users when it’s used as intended by the tobacco manufacturers.
Tobacco smoke has up to 7,000 different chemicals. Of those chemicals, at least 172 are toxic (poisonous), and about 70 are known to cause cancer.
Smokeless tobacco (moist snuff, dip or chew) and tobacco that’s used up the nose (dry snuff or snus) has more than 3,000 chemicals. Of those, 28 are known to cause cancer. Snuff products have more nicotine than cigarettes. The average cigarette has 8.4 mg of nicotine; the average moist dip product has 14.5 mg of nicotine.
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are battery-powered vaporizers that use liquid vapour to deliver mist into the body (vaping). The mist is often a mixture of chemicals and sometimes contains nicotine. E-cigarettes contain at least 10 chemicals that are linked to cancer and birth defects. E-cigarettes could put you at risk of nicotine addiction and are not recommended as an aid to quitting tobacco.
Vaping can affect the people around you. The exhaled mist that comes from an e-cigarette or vaping device has a mixture of chemicals that are toxic. Although the toxins are lower than with tobacco smoke, it can still cause harm to you and your partner’s reproductive health.
To learn more about tobacco and tobacco-like products, go to AlbertaQuits.
Tobacco products can harm every part of your body.
Smoking is a major cause of heart disease. Heart disease affects how well your heart works and how well your blood moves through your body. Blood flow or heart problems can affect major organs like the kidneys or liver.
A woman who smokes as few as 4 cigarettes a day has 2 times the risk of heart disease as a woman who‘s never smoked.
Also, 8 out of 10 women who died of lung cancer were women who smoked.
People who have diabetes and smoke, risk death. Both diabetes and tobacco products affect the blood vessels, which can lead to problems getting oxygen into your body’s tissues.
Smoking tobacco damages the cells in the lungs. This can lead to developing conditions like COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) chronic bronchitis or emphysema. Other conditions such as asthma can get worse if someone smokes.
Tobacco and tobacco-like products can change your body’s hormones. Tobacco can reduce your estrogen levels, which can change your monthly menstrual cycle.
If you smoke you’re more likely to have trouble becoming pregnant compared to women who don’t smoke. Women who smoke may also find that it takes them longer to become pregnant.
If you smoke you also have a higher risk of ectopic (tubal) pregnancy (fertilized egg implants in your fallopian tube instead of your uterus). Ectopic pregnancies always mean the pregnancy will end. It can also be life-threatening if the fallopian tube breaks open. Smoking may increase the risk of some types of tumours in your ovaries.
Learn more about the effects of smoking on pregnancy here.
Men who smoke can sometimes have problems getting or keeping an erection. This is because smoking causes blood vessels to become narrow, so less blood can get to tissues, including the penis.
Smoking may damage sperm, making it harder for sperm to fertilize the egg (reach and enter the egg).
Quitting tobacco can be very challenging. It takes on average 5 to 7 attempts to stay quit. Each time you try, you will learn things that will help you the next time you try. This may include learning what triggers you to smoke.
The key is to just keep trying!
It took a while to develop this behavior and it will likely take some time to work your way back out of it. There are more people who quit tobacco than who use tobacco, so believe you can do it! It may just take you a few tries to get there.
When trying to quit, some people try a different tobacco or tobacco-like product they think will cause less harm to their health. However, there are Health Canada approved alternatives. These options will help with cravings and reduce the harm to you and your family.
Talk to your health care provider or pharmacist about nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and non-nicotine medications to help with the physical and emotional side effects of quitting.
If you’ve used NRT or another product in the past and it didn’t work well for you, speak with your health care provider or pharmacist. Sometimes a change in dose or changing when and how you use the product can make a difference.
If you take medicines for a health condition, talk with your health care provider before you quit smoking to see whether you should change the dose of any of your medicines.
If you smoke tobacco it can increase the chances of an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy or miscarriage.
These products can also increase risks of:
Learn about the risks of second and third hand smoke.
Talk to your health care provider about the best options for you. There are many types of resources and supports available to help you cut down and quit.
Your tobacco reduction plan is as unique as you are. AlbertaQuits is an Alberta Health Services program that provides free help and support to reduce or quit using tobacco products and stay quit. If you or your partner use tobacco products, learn how to prepare to become tobacco free.
Ready or Not contains a lot of information. So we created My To-Do List for you to use as a personal reminder, share with your partner, or bring to your next check-up.
Be sure to click “Add this to my To-Do List” anytime you see something you want to print, email, save, or share. Because we do not ask for any personal information, your list will only be saved for a week after your last added item.
