Smoking is harmful for anyone, but if you're about to have heart surgery you should definitely kick the habit. In this video, cardiothoracic surgeon Emile Bacha, MD, outlines the specific reasons smoking is bad for heart surgery patients.
You should quit smoking, period. Definitely that's something that I cannot stress enough. Now if you're having heart surgery, you should definitely quit smoking because when you're having heart surgery you're being put to sleep under general anesthesia which means your lungs are being ventilated meaning your breathing has been taken over by a machine, if you have been injuring your lungs with cigarettes smoke then the aspect of the artificial ventilation that occurs during surgery is going to be much worse for you, and you may end up spending more time incubated which means with the breathing tube in your airway than if you weren't smoking, again you should stop smoking period, if you are smoking, you're having a heart surgery you should definitely stop smoking.
Emile Bacha, MD is a cardiothoracic surgeon specializing in valve repair and reconstruction, neonatal cardiac surgery, hybrid procedures, complex biventricular repairs and adult congenital heart surgery.
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