Take a look at the Surgeon General's warning printed on a pack of cigarettes, and you will find that it talks about the potential for causing birth defects. Yet in spite of the foregoing, the number of expectant mothers who light up regularly is decreasing only slowly and gradually, while there are still those who will continue to puff away without restraint. Some try to cut back a bit - such as only smoking half a cigarette instead of the whole - while others will switch brands to a low tar or light cigarette in the mistaken hope of doing less harm to their bodies and the bodies of their unborn children. Thus far, pregnant women who smoke have not been able to actually name a birth defect associated with nicotine intake and therefore to some it has been more of a generic warning, akin a CYA attempt to ward of lawsuits before their inception, than an actually specific alert.

This changed in the early days of 2007 when researchers hailing from both the United States and Europe confirmed that they findings indicate a direct link between the inhalation of nicotine and the presentation of cleft palate abnormalities in infants born to women who smoked during their pregnancies. Traced back to a genetic anomaly, a fetus whose DNA makeup featured this otherwise undetectable lack of a certain gene is at higher risk of developing a cleft palate when the mother's system is exposed to nicotine than an infant whose mother either does not smoke, or an infant who does not lack the certain gene itself.

At this point in time there is no known methodology for testing if the fetus is lacking the specific gene and thus if she or he will be at a higher risk of developing a cleft palate when exposed to tobacco smoke or the direct effects of nicotine. Similarly, there is no finding - yet - that points toward the mother's genetic makeup and the possibility that it is a gene within her makeup that might increase the unborn child's risk of developing the birth defect if she is a smoker during the pregnancy. Thus, the only available option for preventing a smoking related cleft palate birth defect is obvious: quit!

Sure, it is much easier said than done, and if quitting the nicotine addiction were easy, the tobacco companies would have been out of business a long time ago. On the flipside of your personal addiction, however, is the health of your unborn child and the potential for the need of several corrective surgeries and the accompanying risks inherent to any surgery performed on a newborn child or young infant. Clearly, the benefits outweigh the discomforts, and while perhaps you may not relish the idea of feeling sick because of your pregnancy in addition to feeling ill because of your nicotine withdrawals, in truth you will most likely feel much worse if you find that your little angel will require several medical procedures that could have been avoided by a small act of personal sacrifice for less than one year.