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Smoking and pregnancy: Understand the risks

Does smoking affect fertility?

You probably know the general risks of smoking — from smelly clothes and wrinkles to heart disease and lung cancer.

If you smoke and you're planning to become pregnant, however, you have even more incentive to quit. Smoking appears to have many negative effects on fertility for both men and women, and might make it harder to become pregnant. Smoking is also linked with a greater risk of ectopic pregnancy — when the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube.