My mom smoked whilst pregnant with me?

I am a 16 year old female and my mom passed away last year, she was a HEAVY smoker and she developed lung cancer. Overall, my mom was a good mom but she had anger issues and as soon as I found out she smoked 20 cigarettes a day with me, I was appalled.

I was born with choanal atresia, a rare birth defect which affects the tissue at the back of the nose, I didn’t know I had it until I was 13 and I was booked in for surgery. I couldn’t breathe out of one of my nostrils and when I confronted my dad about it when I was 7 he told me “it is normal to only breathe out of one nostril at the time”. My nose used to run constantly and I had the incapability to blow my nose due to the blockage. After 13 years of getting ignored, it got drilled through.

Scientists believe choanal atresia is most commonly seen in babies whose mother smoked during pregnancy but I got lucky as my condition was unilateral not bilateral.

16 years down the line, with my mom passing away a year before, it’s understandable that I was concerned for my health so I went to the GP and had a heart trace (ECG) and I blew into a peak flow metre - I also had 2 different doctors and 2 nurses listen to my lungs and they said it sounded clear and healthy. My peak flow reading was 420 litres per minute which is 40 litres higher than anybody else my height and age.

My lung capacity is high and my heart trace came back as normal, they said it sounded a bit irregular at times but they told me it was nothing to worry about since it sounded healthy.

I do wheeze, however. I told the doctors and nurses and they all said the same thing “I can’t hear anything”. I hear it when I’m lying in bed and it is exercised induced, I have my own peak flow metre and after exercising it is 370 litres per minute so obviously my lung capacity decreases with exercise and I told the doctor this and she said it must be mild asthma since she cannot hear anything with the stethoscope. I have also got my own stethoscope and I listened to my lungs whilst breathing, the wheezing wasn’t necessarily coming from my lungs... it was in between the top two lobes of my lungs near my neck so it has lead me to believe it is originating from my throat or the bronchial tube leading to my lungs. The wheezing does disappear with a puff of the inhaler, however and I have no other symptoms.

Maybe I worry too much and I have gotten off lucky? I was told I was lucky that I had no complications when I was little and chances are there won’t be anything wrong in the future since I’m not exposed to smoke anymore.

For the record, I would never smoke. It’s a stupid and selfish thing to do ESPECIALLY whilst you’re pregnant - I mean, how could you possibly assign death to your unborn child? I guess they’re not all as lucky as me. Poor babies.