Secondhand Smoke

Secondhand tobacco smoke is the smoke inhaled by nonsmokers--smoke in the air from someone smoking cigarettes, cigars, or pipes in the indoor environment.

Secondhand smoke is sometimes called "environmental tobacco smoke" "ETS," "involuntary smoking," or "passive smoke."

Secondhand smoke is a health concern, especially for young children. The lungs of young children are still developing and are particularly sensitive to the effects of secondhand smoke. Dhildren are also vulnerable to exposure to secondhand smoke because they must depend on parents, care-givers, and other adults to keep their environment healthy. Children are typically exposed involuntarily to secondhand smoke.

An article in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine reviewed all research on children's health and tobacco smoking from 1980 to 1996. This article conluded that parental smoking is a major health risk for children and results in annual direct medical expenses of $4.6 billion in their children -- 8% of all pediatric medical spending. This includes 5.4 million excess cases of disease and 6,200 excess childhood deaths.

The article mentioned above also showed that as a group, children of smokers who are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke experience:

• Higher rates of bronchitis and pneumonia, especially in the first 2 years

• Impaired lung function as they get older

• Asthma episodes aggravated or triggered by secondhand smoke

• Increased likelihood to develop asthma

• Increased numbers of acute respiratory illnesses

• More ear infections and hearing problems

• Longer recovery from colds and other illnesses

• More days of school missed due to illness

Living with secondhand smoke can mean that children suffer from recurrent coughs, wheezing, stuffy noses, headaches, sore throats, eye irritation, ear infections, hoarseness, dizziness, nausea, loss of appetite, lack of energy, and fussiness.

If you are a parent give your children an opportunity to grow up in a smoke-free environment. If you cannot quit smoking, then make every effort to remove econdhand smoke from your children's environment.