Second-hand Tobacco Smoke and Children

Breathing other people's smoke is called passive, involuntary or second-hand smoking.

Something more than 42% of British children are exposed to every day. (1)

And which accounts for the hospitalisation of 17,000 under-fives. (2)

Parents who smoke pass on a legacy of serious health consequences to their child before its birth, during childhood and in future adulthood.

Women who smoke or who experience second hand smoke are more likely to miscarry, deliver smaller babies and risk stillbirth than those who don't. (2)

Around 365 babies die each year in England and Wales from Cot Death caused by exposure to their parent's smoke. (2)

Second hand tobacco is a cause of bronchitis, pneumonia, coughing, wheezing, asthma attacks and middle ear infection amongst children. (3)

Exposure to second hand tobacco smoke during childhood predisposes children to developing cancer and other respiratory diseases as adults. (2)

(1) General Household Survey 1998
(2) Royal College of Physicians: Smoking & The Young (1992)
(3) World Health Organisation Review.