Millions of children are breathing in secondhand smoke in their own homes. Secondhand smoke can be especially harmful to your children’s health because their lungs still are developing. If you smoke around your children or they are exposed to secondhand smoke in other places, they may be in more danger than you realize. Children whose parents smoke only outside are still exposed to the chemicals in secondhand smoke. The best way to eliminate this exposure is to quit.
What is secondhand smoke? It is also known as environmental tobacco smoke and is the smoke a smoker breathes out as well as comes from the tip of burning cigarettes, pipes, and cigars. It contains about 7,000 chemicals. Many of these chemicals are dangerous; more than 70 are known to cause cancer. Anytime children breathe in secondhand smoke they are exposed to these chemicals. The American Academy Pediatrics (AAP) has conducted research on the effects of thirdhand smoke and found that it is also harmful. Thirdhand smoke is the smoke left behind–the harmful toxins that remain in places where people have smoked previously. Thirdhand smoke can be found in the walls of a bar, upholstery on the seats of a car, or even a child’s hair after a caregiver smokes near the child.
Your developing baby and smoke: If you smoke or are exposed to secondhand smoke when you are pregnant, your baby is exposed to harmful chemicals too. This may lead to many serious health problems, including:
- miscarriage
- premature birth (born not fully developed)
- lower birth weight than expected (possibly meaning a less healthy baby)
- sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
- learning problems and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- smoking during pregnancy results in more than 1,000 infant deaths annually
The health risks go up the longer the pregnant woman smokes or is exposed to smoke. Quitting anytime during the pregnancy helps–of course, the sooner the better. All pregnant women should stay away from secondhand smoke and ask smokers not to smoke around them.
Maternal, fetal, and placental blood flow change when pregnant women smoke, although the long-term health effects of these changes are not known. Some studies suggest that smoking during pregnancy causes birth defects such as cleft lip or palate. Smoking mothers produce less milk, and their babies have a lower birth weight,. Maternal smoking is also associated with neonatal death from SIDS, the major cause of death in infants between one month and one year old.
Secondhand smoke and your children’s health: Infants have a higher risk of SIDS if they are exposed to secondhand smoke. Children have a higher risk of serious health problems, or problems may become worse. Children who breathe secondhand smoke can have more:
- ear infections
- coughs and colds
- respiratory problems, such as bronchitis and pneumonia
- tooth decay
Children of smokers cough and wheeze more and have a harder time getting over colds. They miss many more school days too. Secondhand smoke can cause other symptoms including stuffy nose, headache, sore throat, eye irritation, and hoarseness. Children with asthma are especially sensitive to secondhand smoke. It may cause more asthma attacks and the attacks may be more severe, requiring trips to the hospital.
Exposure to secondhand smoke increases both the number of ear infections a child will experience, and the duration of the illness. Inhaled smoke irritates the eustachian tube, which connects the back of the nose with the middle ear. This causes swelling and obstruction which interferes with pressure equalization in the middle ear, leading to pain, fluid, and infection. Ear infections and middle ear fluid are the most common cause of children’s hearing loss. When they do not respond to medical treatment, the surgical insertion of tubes into the ears is often required, which requires a general anesthetic and the potential problems that go along with the surgery.
Long-term effects of secondhand smoke: Children who grow up with parents who smoke are themselves more likely to smoke. Children and teens who smoke are affected by the same health problems that affect adults. Secondhand smoke may cause problems for children later in life including:
- poor lung development (meaning that their lungs never grow to their full potential)
- lung cancer
- heart disease
- cataracts (an eye disease)
Secondhand smoke puts teenagers at a higher risk for low-frequency sensorineural hearing loss that is directly related to the level of exposure, and most affected individuals are unaware of the hearing loss. Children of mothers who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to suffer behavioral problems such as hyperactivity than children of non-smoking mothers. Modest impairment in school performance and intellectual achievement has also been demonstrated.
Secondhand smoke is everywhere: Children can be exposed to secondhand smoke in many places. Even if there are no smokers in your home, your children can still be exposed to secondhand smoke. Places include:
- in a car or on a bus
- at child care or school
- at a babysitter’s house
- at a friend’s or relative’s house
- in a restaurant
- at the mall
- at sporting events or concerts
- in parks or playgrounds
Creating a smoke-free environment: The following tips may keep your children from being exposed to secondhand smoke:
- Set the example. If you smoke, quit today! If your children see you smoking, they may want to try it, and they may grow up smoking as well. If there are cigarettes at home, children are more likely to experiment with smoking–the first step in becoming addicted.
- Consult your physician for help, if needed. There are many new pharmaceutical products available to help you quit.
- If you have household members who smoke, help them stop. If it is not possible to stop their smoking, do not allow them in your home or near your children.
- Remove your children from places where smoking is allowed. Even if no one is smoking while you are there. Chemicals from smoke can be found on surfaces in rooms days after the smoking occurred.
- Make your home smoke free. Until you can quit, don’t smoke inside your home and don’t smoke anywhere near your children, even if you are outside. Don’t put out any ashtrays. Remember, air flows throughout a house, so smoking in even one room allows smoke to go everywhere.
- Make your car smoke-free. Until you can quit, don’t smoke inside your car. Opening windows isn’t enough to clear the air and can actually blow smoke back into the faces of passengers in the back seat.
- Choose a babysitter who doesn’t smoke. even if the babysitter smokes outside, your children are exposed. Consider changing babysitters to find a smoke-free environment for your children.
- Encourage tobacco-free child care and schools. Help your children’s child care or school, including outdoor areas and teachers’ lounges, become tobacco free. Get your children involved in the effort to make schools tobacco free.
Even if you don’t smoke, breathing in someone else’s smoke can be deadly too. Secondhand smoke causes about 3,000 deaths from lung cancer and tens of thousands of deaths from heart disease. If you smoke, one of the most important things you can do for your own health and the health of your children is to stop smoking. Quitting is the best way to prevent your children from being exposed to secondhand smoke.
Secondhand smoke causes cardiovascular disease in adults.
Exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effest on the cardiovascular system and can cause coronary heart disease and stroke.
- Secondhand smoke causes nearly 34,000 premature deaths from heart disease each year in the United States among non-smokers.
- Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 24-30%.
- Secondhand smoke increases the risk for stoke by 20-30%.
- Secondhand smoke exposure causes more than 8,000 deaths from stroke annually.
Breathing secondhand smoke can have immediate adverse effects on your blood and blood vessels, increasing the risk of having a heart attack.
- Breathing secondhand smoke interferes with the normal functioning of the heart, blood, and vascular systems in ways that increase the risk of having a heart attack.
- Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can damage the lining of blood vessel and cause your blood platelets to become stickier. These changes can cause a deadly heart attack.
- People who already have heart disease are at especially high risk of suffering adverse effects from breathing secondhand smoke and should take special precautions to avoid even brief exposures.
Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer
Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in adults who have never smoked.
- Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing lung cancer by 20-30%
- Secondhand smoke causes more than 7,300 lung cancer deaths among US smokers each year.
- Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke are inhaling many of the same cancer-causing substances and poisons as smokers.
- Even brief secondhand smoke exposure can damage cells in ways that set the cancer process in motion.
- As with active smoking, the longer the duration and the higher the level of exposure to secondhand smoke, the greater the risk of developing lung cancer.
Secondhand smoke causes SIDS
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden, unexpected, unexplained death of an infant in the first year of life. SIDS is the leading cause of death in otherwise healthy infants. Secondhand smoke increases the risk for SIDS.
- Smoking by women during pregnancy increases the risk for SIDS.
- Infants who are exposed to secondhand smoke after birth are also at greater risk for SIDS.
- Chemicals in secondhand smoke appear to affect the brain in ways that interfere with its regulation of infants’ breathing.
- Infants who die from SIDS have higher concentrations of nicotine in their lungs and higher levels of cotinine (a biological marker for secondhand smoke exposure) than infants who die from other causes.
Parents can help protect their babies from SIDS by taking the following three actions:
- Do not smoke when pregnant.
- Do not smoke in the home or around the baby.
- Put the baby to sleep on its back.
Secondhand smoke harms children.
Secondhand smoke can cause serious health problems in children.
- Studies show that older children whole parents smoke get sick more often. Their lungs grow less than children who do not breathe secondhand smoke, and they get more bronchitis and pneumonia.
- Wheezing and coughing are more common in children who breathe secondhand smoke.
- Secondhand smoke can trigger an asthma attack in a child. Children with asthma who are around secondhand smoke have more severe and frequent asthma attacks. A severe asthma attqach can put a child’s life in danger.
- Children whose parents smoke around them get more ear infections. They also have fluid in their ears more often and have more operations to put in ear tubes for drainage.
Parents can protect their children from secondhand smoke by taking the following actions:
- Do not allow anyone to smoke anywhere in or near your home.
- So not allow anyone to smoke in your car, even with the window down.
- make sure your children’s day care centers and schools are tobacco free.
- If your state still allows smoking in public places, look for restaurants and other places that do not allow smoking. “No-smoking sections” do not protect you and your family from secondhand smoke.