When we visit the cinema theatre eagerly waiting to watch our favourite heroes movie, Passive smoking and children we have few government commercials running before the movie trying to increase our awareness regarding the ill effects of smoking. Just to recap, below this text is one
such video. Try listening carefully to the ending of the video, smoking not only affects you but also your close ones (especially your children). The commercial may be boring, the production values may not be Hollywood, but what they are trying to convey is the ABSOLUTE TRUTH about smoking and passive smoking. Read on…
Children are very sensitive to smoke emanated from cigarettes. It affects their quality of life tremendously especially their ear, nose, throat and lungs. It is advisable for the adults to see that this exposure is bought to nil.
When you light up a cigarette and start smoking, the smoke emanates from your cigarette and also while you exhale. This smoke emanated is known as ETS, short for Environmental Tobacco smoke and has a very distinct odour, rather unpleasant and irritating. Over 3000 chemicals were identified in ETS and 30 of them were identified as carcinogens (cancer causing). ETS settles on the house upholstery, clothing, hair leading to long term effects. This is the reason we have smoking and non-smoking rooms in hotels.
Passive smoking affects your children in a number of ways
- When pregnant woman smoke, the newborns are at an increased risk of being born with low birth weight, with birth defects such as cleft lip & cleft palate. These children perform poorly in schools because of slowing of mental development in them.
- Exposure to ETS causes recurrent nose, sinus infections and cough in children. ETS impairs your child’s lung function causing increased frequency and severity of asthma attacks.
- ETS exposure causes irritation and swelling of eustachian tube, a small pipe extending between the back of nose and ear, responsible for ventilation of ear. This causes recurrent ear pain, ear infections, fluid formation in the ear which affects the hearing in children.
- Older children on prolonged exposure to second hand smoke have exhibited mild forms of low frequency nerve deafness.
So, maybe its time for you to stop smoking. If you were postponing your last smoke, its time now, your child will bear the brunt otherwise. Want to have one last smoke, take it far outside your home, no, not the car…
