Children who live in homes with smoke smoke between 60 and 150 cigarettes
The smoker It not only compromises your health. All those around him and breathe the smoke expelled by his cigarettes also develop health problems. This is one of the reasons why pediatricians recommend that tobacco be a prohibited element in the home and that those parents who consume it always try to do so as far as possible from their children.
A reminder to which the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery joins in its study of smoke exposure. environmental tobacco from 0 to 3 years in 'Prevention of Smoking. Report in which it is clear that children in homes with smokers suffer more respiratory infections and hospital admissions.
Greater vulnerability
Although any person exposed to smoke suffers the consequences of passive smoking, in the case of children the vulnerability is greater. Its smaller corporal surface and weight, together with the amount of hours that they spend at home (especially in times like winter) makes them more likely to develop respiratory diseases.
To assess the effects of passive smoking in childhood, more specifically from 0 to 3 years, a cross-sectional, retrospective study has been carried out in the pediatric primary care clinics of the Artilleros Health Center, in Madrid, in which a total of 150 children have participated, of which 56.7% have been boys and girls. 43.3% girls
Of the total sample, 43,3% has presented exposure to environmental smoke, of which 61.5% were children and 38.5% girls. Of the children exposed to passive smoking, 56% were for having a smoking father, 27.8% for a smoking mother and up to 15% for a primary caregiver.
It is estimated that children from smoking homes would receive an annual total nicotine dose equivalent to smoking between 60 and 150 cigarettes year. Those responsible for this work highlight other studies in which it has been shown that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.
Assistance and illness
This study has also confirmed that the number half of episodes and consultations with the pediatrician for respiratory infections, among other healthcare needs, was higher in children exposed to tobacco smoke than in children who did not. In this way, children exposed to environmental tobacco smoke had an average of 9.0 cases of respiratory infections compared to 7.4 children who were not exposed.
An average of 11.8 consultations to the pediatrician compared to 9.4 of the non-exposed, an average of referrals to specialized care of 1.9 compared to 1.1 in unexposed patients; and an average of 0.3 of income from respiratory infections, also higher in children exposed to smoke, compared to 0.2 in those not exposed. The number of episodes of upper respiratory tract infections in exposed children was higher than those not exposed, whether the father was the smoker or the mother the smoker
In the case of lower respiratory tract infection, only the difference in the number of episodes in children was statistically significant exposed and not exposed, when the mother was the smoker.
Damián Montero
