Breast milk is the best food for your baby, especially at the initial stage of life. Thanks to it, the child can avoid a lot of diseases. Everyone understands that smoking mother, along with breast milk transmits her child not only nutrients, but also a lot of harmful substances (which are contained in tobacco smoke). The most dangerous of them is nicotine. In the body of the child nicotine is converted to another substance – cotinine. Its level in the babies who were breast-feed, can reach 10 times more than the kids of non-smoking mothers. The scientists have found out that cigarette taste is present in breast milk within 30-60 minutes after smoking. So, if you can not refuse a cigarette, then at least smoke after breastfeeding. Also, studies have shown that smoking mothers who breastfeed, the duration of feeding is less than those who do not smoke. Accordingly, the milk is exuded less and the quality of it will be worse. A team of scientists from the Monell Chemical Center found out that the nicotine contained in breast milk of lactating mothers suffering from tobacco, reduces the sleep time of the child and makes him/her restless. The results showed that if the mother smokes a cigarette before feeding, sleep time of a child is reduced by 37%. The level of anxiety was directly dependent on the amount of nicotine contained in breast milk.
Thus, mothers who smoke endanger the health of their baby, have less milk and the amount of nutrients is worse that in milk of the non-smokers.