Another Thyroid Risk: Did Your Mom Smoke While Pregnant

A new thyroid study shows that a mother who smokes during pregnancy not only has an adverse influence on her own thyroid hormone status during pregnancy, but also passes abnormalities in thyroid hormone function on to her baby. This latter finding should serve as a heads up to women or men who had smoking mothers - as it is quite likely that this causes later-life risk for thyroid problems - especially those induced by stress.

During pregnancy thyroid hormone is vital to have in tip-top working order, as it is called upon to work overtime to help build the baby's body. The net result of smoking on thyroid is too much inappropriate stimulation (like too much caffeine or stress during pregnancy), resulting in smoking-induced malnutrition that significantly increases the risk for miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight and impaired neuropsychological development of the baby.

Smokers, like caffeine drinkers, simply need to quit at once as soon as they know they are pregnant, which prevents the adverse changes to thyroid hormone.

This study raises an interesting question for many of my readers: Did your mother smoke while she was pregnant with you? The new study shows that TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) is lowered by smoking, while T3 levels elevate - a pattern that also appears in the newborn baby. This means that smoking is inducing a hyperthyroid-like-malnutrition stress profile on the baby's developing nervous system.

The first few weeks of life are critical "thyroid times" in terms of future health, having a profound effect on programming of key nerve circuitry for a lifetime. This particular influence would have the effect of making the baby more sensitive to stress - as technically the thyroid is being down-regulated by the excessive stimulation of nicotine and chemicals. Such early programming could lead to later-life anxiety, irritation, agitation, irregular heart beats, insomnia, out-of-control food cravings, and possible substance abuse including alcohol dependence.

This problem undoubtedly involves hypocretin excess, as I describe in my article on Oprah Winfrey: Oprah's Thyroid Problem Explained.

Children of smoking parents should realize that this is a weak spot for them and be sure that they have enough relaxation and rejuvenation to offset demands in their life - otherwise thyroid problems, stress management issues, insomnia, and leptin problems (weight management) are much more likely to kick in any time stress gets too intense.

Nutrients that help make energy (such as Daily Energy Multiple Vitamin and Thyroid Helper), nutrients that help tolerate stress (such as Stress Helper and Phosphatidylserine), and nutrients that help relax the nerves (such as RelaxaMag and Sleep Helper - which can be taken during the day as needed), form the core for basic nutritional support to help keep your metabolism on track and mood in a better condition.

Healthy metabolism is not simply based on the idea of going faster - otherwise you could just drink ten cups of coffee per day and lose all the weight you wanted. Rather, healthy metabolism is based on having a solid foundation of balance and relaxation - and from this foundation metabolism can kick into gear in a healthy way. Those with mothers who smoked while they were pregnant should understand that their nerves may be more prone to easily fraying - leading to stress-induced thyroid issues.