Stop passive smoking to reduce risk in children
The tobacco not only influences those who consume it, the people around them also receive their harmful effects by breathing this smoke. Passive smokers suffer these consequences, something that is especially worrying in children, who become victims of chemicals that enter their bodies through the air rarefied by cigarettes.
A warning they make from the General Council of Nursing, which indicates that according to WHO data 30% of deaths due to smoking passive in the world occurs in children. The smoke that children breathe gives rise to serious problems of children's health such as wheezing, chronic cough, asthma, bronchitis, severe infections, pneumonia, otitis and even obesity and cancer.
Long-term cancer
Along with the WHO data, the General Council of Nursing also warns that children exposed to tobacco smoke have up to four times more risk of lung cancer in adulthood. That is why parents are asked to reconsider about some negligence that is carried out in front of the children and that turns them into passive smokers, an example is exposure to smoke in such closed spaces as the car.
Smoking half a cigarette in the car generates, within the vehicle, a contamination ten times higher than the limits considered dangerous to health. Tobacco smoke presents 7,000 substances, of which 250 are considered as brides and as 70 carcinogenic, all of them remain in the vehicle for weeks so not only at the time of exposure do they breathe.
In view of this situation, the General Council of Nursing has initiated the Bell called "Car Without Smoke. Protégeles", with it is intended to raise awareness among parents about the importance of giving up tobacco in these spaces as small as vehicles in this case. This organism remembers that although the Anti-Tobacco Law has reduced the exposure of adults to smoke, it has not been so in the smallest.
The home and the car become the main spaces where the exposure of the youngest children to tobacco smoke takes place. While regulations can regulate public spaces, at home and other private spaces, it is the parents who have to regulate the exposure of their children.
Tips to stop smoking
Given the dangers of tobacco in children, a good idea is to stop smoking. A very hard task for adults because they are facing the abandonment of one of the most addictive habits and with a great social acceptance. These are some keys to succeed in this mission:
- Choose a day. Decide the day you want to start and from there start to work hard. From here all cigarettes should be thrown away and not go shopping.
- Communicate the decision to friends and other family members. To avoid temptation nothing better than to prevent others from smoking in the presence of the person who is leaving, asking for the favor of these acquaintances is a great help.
- Search for alternatives. How to distract the mind when the need returns? Nothing better than to take it on something: go for a walk, exercise, dedicate to activities such as cooking.
- Hide everything that can remember it. Ashtrays, lighters and other objects related to the use of tobacco should be hidden.
- Remember the objective. Do not forget the objective and the reasons to achieve it, better health for the person who is quitting smoking and less danger for the little ones.
Damián Montero
