The harm of secondhand smoke to children

Secondhand smoke can cause great harm to adults' health, let alone babies. Children's organs are not fully developed yet. If they are often exposed to secondhand smoke, it is easy for them to suffer from diseases such as asthma. In severe cases, it can damage the baby's brain nerve development and affect the baby's IQ. Affected by secondhand smoke, babies are also prone to respiratory diseases.

Secondhand smoke is extremely harmful to adults, and it is even more serious for delicate babies. In summary, these hazards are mainly manifested in eight aspects:

1. Susceptible to lower respiratory tract infections

Children's bronchial tubes are relatively straight, which allows toxic substances in tobacco to easily pass through their respiratory tract, reach the alveoli and accumulate there. Therefore, children whose parents smoke are significantly more likely to suffer from respiratory diseases than those whose parents do not smoke, and the probability of disease is almost positively correlated with the degree of smoking of their parents.

2. Prone to asthma

Secondhand smoke can increase the frequency of asthma in children and cause it to recur. If there is a smoker in the family, the incidence of bronchial asthma among children will be several times that of those in non-smoking families. Moreover, the more severe the parents' smoking, the higher the incidence of asthma in their children.

3. Cause anorexia in children

When parents smoke during meals, the baby will be irritated by the smoke and will inevitably lose appetite. If things go on like this for a long time, children will form an association between smoking and eating, and will inevitably develop anorexia.

4. Can cause deafness

This is by no means an exaggeration. Long-term smoke in the home can stimulate the middle ear to secrete a large amount of mucus. Excessive fluid accumulation in the middle ear and blockage of the ear canal can easily induce otitis media. Long term exposure may lead to perforation of the eardrum, resulting in conductive hearing loss.

5. Damage to children’s IQ

Nicotine breaks down to produce a substance called cotyledon, which can damage children's intelligence. Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke for a long time will inevitably have significantly higher than normal levels of cotinidine in their blood. Therefore, their reading, calculation, and logical reasoning abilities are not as good as those of normal children. Their IQ levels are negatively correlated with the concentration of cotinine in their blood.

6. Snoring

The smoke contains a large number of tiny particles and other irritants, which can cause polyps on the baby's tonsils and narrow the respiratory tract, which is the reason why the baby snores constantly during sleep. It should be noted that snoring is not a trivial problem. It is a kind of sleep apnea phenomenon. In mild cases, it affects the baby's sleep quality and makes him or her listless during the day. In severe cases, it is easy to suffocate during sleep, and the consequences are disastrous.

7. Damage to the baby’s blood vessels

Secondhand smoke can make antioxidants in the blood vessels ineffective and produce harmful substances in the blood vessels that reduce the elasticity of the blood vessel walls, inducing blood vessel wall inflammation and thrombosis. Concentrations of these substances increased with the amount of smoking by the parents. These substances can induce a series of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.

8. Tooth decay

Children who live in the same room with smoking parents are more likely to develop tooth decay. Secondhand smoke increases the concentration of cotin in children's blood, making them more likely to develop cavities in their teeth. At the same time, in order to resist the invasion of smoke, children's teeth will turn black as the body's own defense.