share: Second Hand Smoke and Children
There are so many States that have become smoke free in restaurants, bars, etc. A recent
The Center of Disease Control study indicated that second hand smoke is known to increase children's risks for asthma, ear infections and cavities as well as sudden infant death (SIDS).
Most children are exposed to second hand smoke inside homes and cars of their care givers. You can read the full article here http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20081220/hl_hsn/almosthalfofkidsstillexposed....
Prevention is simple: the adults have to quit smoking. To reduce the risk of exposure inside the home, it would be imperative to smoke outside and not smoke while inside a vehicle. Toxic exposures that are found in cigarettes are staggering. To see what chemicals are found in cigarettes, please click on the following link provided by Haz Map http://hazmap.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/hazmap_generic?tbl=TblActivities&id=23.
As you can see by the list of toxic substances, there are certainly many reasons not to exposure children to second hand smoke. So for our children’s sake, let’s not expose them to the carcinogens. The environment provides enough to concern the future generations.
Do you have any suggestions to stop the second hand smoke on our children?
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Schools, children's play zones/restaurants/amusement houses are all smoke free. So is public transportation, movie theaters, libraries, bookstores, museums and pretty much every where else a kid is.
Eliminating second hand smoke is easy - as you said - the adults have to quit smoking. If they do, the problems of second hand smoke are eliminated. Plain and simple. Children under school age spend more time at home that anywhere else, particularly children with a stay-at-home parent.
California has recently made smoking in a car with children illegal. I hope the rest of the states follow suit. There is nothing worse than seeing two smoking parents (especially in winter) in a car with the windows up - and two or three kids tied into their seats behind them. Literally, trapped in smoke.
I read recently that foster parents in many areas of England are now required to be non-smokers.
The British Agencies of Adoption and Fostering are also now recommending that children under the age of 5 be adopted only in smoke free homes.
You can read more about that here : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7436239.stm
Some foster parents in England are very angry that they are being mandated to be smoke free, arguing that the fact that they smoke does not make them bad foster parents.
Of course, that is true. But their argument to be allowed to smoke should pale in comparison to their desire to foster children. If my choice was to smoke, or have a child (foster, or otherwise) I know which I'd pick.
Sooner or later we're going to have to accept that nicotine is a very dangerous poison that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. As a smoker, that is one's choice. But as a child, it is not. There is simply no denying that children in non-smoking homes have better overall health, both in childhood and adulthood.
December 20, 2008 - 11:46amThis Comment