Nicotine’s role in SIDS

[Blood]

Exposure to cigarette smoke in the womb may dampen a baby’s fight-or-flight responses, leaving the newborn vulnerable to sudden infant death syndrome, a study in rats suggests. It has been known that babies exposed to the smoke have a higher risk of the syndrome, in which seemingly healthy infants inexplicably die. The new study, appearing June 3 in The Journal of Neuroscience, may explain why, the researchers report.
“SIDS is a complicated disease, and this is why you need these kinds of studies,” comments Ernest Cutz, a pediatric pathologist at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

Researchers led by Colin Nurse, a neurobiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, studied chromaffin cells, which are located in the adrenal gland of both rats and humans. In alarming situations — like when a baby is, for any number of reasons, not getting enough oxygen — these cells flood the body with chemical signals called catecholamines. These signals, which include adrenaline, stimulate the fight-or-flight response. “Catecholamines are very important alarm mechanisms that wake a baby up,” Nurse says.
The chromaffin cells of newborn rats that were exposed to nicotine while in their mothers’ womb produced more of a protein that dampens the cells’ responses. This protein, called a potassium ATP channel, normally acts as a brake by preventing the cells from releasing the fight-or-flight signals in nonthreatening situations, Nurse says. For the rats that have been exposed to nicotine, he says, “the brake has become too strong.” Fetal nicotine exposure prevented the cells from later sounding the alarm and releasing catecholamines when the researchers deprived the rats of oxygen, Nurse and his colleagues found.



Not only did rats exposed to nicotine in the womb have abnormally high levels of potassium ATP channels, these rats were more likely to die in low-oxygen conditions than were young rats not exposed to nicotine in the womb.
Nurse says the process probably explains why fetuses exposed to cigarette smoke during development end up having a higher risk of SIDS. “With smoking mothers, the nicotine is getting to the fetus at a time the nervous system is developing,” Nurse says. “If systems are perturbed, you can’t respond appropriately.”



The higher death rate among the rats was reversed when the fetuses were treated with a drug called glibenclamide before nicotine exposure. Glibenclamide, commonly used to treat diabetes in adults, acts on the same potassium ATP channels that nicotine affects. “We were able to reverse the adverse effects of nicotine,” Nurse says.
“The paper adds to the knowledge in the field,” says Rosemary Horne of the Monash Institute of Medical Research in Clayton, Australia. But she cautions that it’s too early to say whether glibenclamide could reduce the risk of SIDS in people.



http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...s_role_in_SIDS

[CrAnIuM]

I'm a week into kicking my 10 year habit.

But even when I was a full on smoker I NEVER smoked indoors unless it was a designated smoking room, and I never smoked around non smokers unless it was outdoors or I got the express consent of the adults present.


But yeah ...


Lead was the big thing that supposedly made all the kids of my generation a bunch of walking zombies.

I turned out fine.

What ?


Who dat ?

[TopGrey]

I'm a week into kicking my 10 year habit.

But even when I was a full on smoker I NEVER smoked indoors unless it was a designated smoking room, and I never smoked around non smokers unless it was outdoors or I got the express consent of the adults present.


But yeah ...


Lead was the big thing that supposedly made all the kids of my generation a bunch of walking zombies.

I turned out fine.

What ?


Who dat ?

Yah, I've been quite for 1.5 years now. But when I did i never smoked inside, only after the kids were in bed, and never in the car with a non smoker or kids present.

[Blood]

I found this article interesting because for YEARS my sisters mother in law has been feeding her bullshit about not smoking while pregnant being hippy shit.

Apparently my brother in law's mother chain smoked through her entire pregnancy like cigarettes were going out of style. And she actually ENCOURAGED my sister not to give up her smoking habit because after all of 'her kids turned out just fine'.

The amusing thing is that very same cigarette peddling hooker actually lost a baby to SIDS and just chalks it up to 'gods plan' and takes NO responsibility for her actions during pregnancy.

My sister smokes indoors around her children..its so bad that her walls are actually tobacco stained.
She does this because my father did it and 'nothing bad ever happened to us'.

I HATE that excuse. It's such a cop out.

[TopGrey]

^^^on the money. Your sisters mom in law sounds like a douchebag. But you sis must be ignorant to believe the ignorant.

[Josie]

Jesus Christ! Your sis and her in-laws are mo-mos. I lived with my in-laws when I found I was pregnant with my first child. BEFORE I was preggers, I smoked. But as soon as I found out, I quit cold-turkey and flipped nuts about needing our own place since it was a house full of indoor chain smokers (and not just cigarettes, mind you).

My husband tried to feed me the bullshit lines too.

"They won't smoke in the same room, it's fine."
"My parents smoked around me all the time and I turned out just fine."
"How can you ask someone not to smoke inside just 'cause you're pregnant?! Rude!"

I know all of you can picture this going over well with Josie.

By three months pregnant, I was in a smoke free purtifuls apartment with a great view of trees and two different deer families. Yep yep.

[Cúchulainn]

I frankly don't give a rat's ass one way or another. But the thing that pisses me off is when pregnant bitches become imposing.

I was sitting in my Montego the other day at my aunt's house, enjoying a cigarette (I won't smoke in front of pregnant women, I'll go outside, into my car, and use the ash trays there) when my pregnant cousin came out of the house, climbed into my Montego and started talking to me. After about three minutes, she then began bitching at me because I was so rude that I was smoking when she knew I was pregnant.

The stupid bitch had FOLLOWED ME, into MY CAR, to bitch at me? I finished my cigarette, ground it out in the ash tray, lit another and started my engine. I told her I was going to go around the block a couple of times and she was free to get out, but she continued to bitch about how inconsiderate I was.

People use their physical conditions for excuses way too much. If you're pregnant, and YOU follow ME into MY GODDAMNED CAR, you have no right to bitch about me smoking.

Stupid wimminz.

[Josie]

Haha!! @ Cuchu's cousin. Apparently the "cuchu" is a genetic trait..

[Gravy]

Not only are smokers weak-willed people, but they're also baby-killers!