Is it safe to vape while you’re pregnant? The short answer is no. Dr. Katherine Wolfe, chair of maternal-fetal medicine at Akron Children’s, explains.
“Many pregnant women feel vaping may be a safer alternative to smoking. We know that nicotine in any form does affect baby’s development. Specifically, concerns are for low birth weight, preterm delivery, and effects on baby’s brain development.
We don’t have any long-term data to compare vaping exposure versus cigarette exposure. However, the concerns are that there’s additional chemicals in vaping, including flavors, that may potentially be harmful to developing babies. A small study shows that switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes lessens the low-birth-weight risk, but the most prominent effect is if they were smoking or using e-cigarettes prior to pregnancy and actually quit using those products – the risk of low birth weight was eliminated. So, the best strategy while pregnancy is to not to use any nicotine, whether it is cigarettes or vaping,” said Dr. Wolfe.
