Parents' cigarette smoke harms kids for years
Effects of exposure during pregnancy can last up to age 12, study finds
NEW YORK - A new international study of more than 20,000 children confirms
that exposure to cigarette smoke before and after birth impairs their lung
function, and that parental smoking remains a serious public health issue.
The effects of smoking during pregnancy last up to age 12, while exposure to
cigarette smoking after birth further worsens lung function, Dr. Manfred A.
Neuberger of the Medical University in Vienna, one of the studys authors,
told Reuters Health.
It is difficult to tell, Neuberger noted, whether the impairment of lung
function resulting from prenatal and early life exposure is permanent, given
that many individuals with parents and siblings who smoke will have started
smoking themselves by their teen years.
The researchers analyzed results from a subset of children who had
participated in the Pollution and the Young Study, including a total of
22,712 children from eight countries. The findings appear in the American
Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were 31 percent to 40 percent
more likely to have poor lung function than children born to non-smokers,
the researchers found. Early-life exposure independently increased risk of
poor lung function to a lesser degree, by 24 percent to 27 percent.
Sixty percent of the children in the study had been exposed to cigarette
smoke before birth or in early life, the researchers found. Considering the
high number of exposed children, this indicates that both environmental
tobacco smoke exposure and smoking during pregnancy remain a severe public
health problem, Neuberger and his team conclude.
The findings are a stark reminder that legal efforts to reduce exposure to
cigarette smoke in workplaces arent protecting the group of people at
greatest risk from passive smoking, young children, Drs. Mark D. Eisner of
the University of California, San Francisco and Francesco Forastiere of the
Rome E Health Authority in Italy write in an editorial accompanying the
study.
Children are primarily exposed to tobacco smoke in the home, where legal
restrictions do not apply, they note.
Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.
Leanne Wynne
Midwife in charge of "Women's Business"
Mildura Aboriginal Health Service Mob 0418 371862
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