Men and women are facing an increased risk of infertility caused by smoking, a new study found - even the fertility of the unborn children could be affected. For women, smoking during early pregnancy reduces the number of germ cells of the baby, which later develop into eggs or sperm, and for men, smoking develops an imbalance in their levels of protein – vital to sperm fertility.

As published by MyHealthNewsDaily, “Research from the University of Buffalo in 2005 showed male smokers' sperm had a more difficult time binding to an egg than non-smokers' sperm. And research from the University of Rochester in 2008 showed that women who had been exposed to secondhand smoke as children or young adults were more likely to have trouble getting pregnant.”

According to germ cell study researcher Claus Yding Andersen of the University Hospital of Copenhagen, more research is needed to demonstrate whether the reductions in germ cells are permanent or are compensated for later in the pregnancy. Either way, he told MyHealthNewsDaily, "If women plan to get pregnant, this should be an incentive to quit smoking”.

“In men, smoking changes the way DNA is packaged in sperm cells. Because of this, their sperm have a decreased chance of fertilizing an egg. When fertilization does happen, the incidence of miscarriage is higher than it is in non-smokers, according to researchers.” The number of germ cells in male cells are halved when the mother smokes and reduced by 41% in all embryos. The more a woman smokes the less germ ce

lls her baby will have. Women should not smoke during pregnancy and men should stop smoking at least three months before conceiving.
Besides having less germ cells, babies could also have organs that are smaller on average than babies born to non-smokers. Other problems include poorer lung function, the babies are twice as likely to die from cot death - there seems to be a direct link between cot death and smoking parents. Also, the babies are ill more frequently and babies born to women who smoked 15 cigarettes or more a day during pregnancy are taken into hospital twice as often during the first eight months of life.

What else?
· Smoking could cause erection problems in men.
· It could affect the shape of the sperm.
· Babies of mothers who smoke could be underweight or born prematurely.
· These babies are more likely to become smokers in their later years.
· Women who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have a miscarriage.

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