I've told this story before as an example of second hand smoke and children, but when I was a kid, my dad smoked. He used to smoke while driving the car, but he would at least crack open the window. I guess he knew back then that second hand smoke and children in the back seat don't mix very well. He probably wasn't looking out for our health, instead he was just trying to be polite. I admire him for that. Back then though, very little was known about the dangers of second hand smoke and children, or just second hand smoke in general.
Today, we live in a different era of science and health. However, despite this knowledge, people continue to smoke at astonishing rates. Roughly 20% of all Americans smoke, which means lots of us are still exposed to second hand smoke. As you'd expect, the researchers have done exhaustive studies detailing the hazards associated with second hand smoke and children. Here is one recent example.
This study looked at parental smoking and rate of ear infections (or what they called middle ear disease) in their children. They evaluated the effects that maternal postnatal smoking had and the effect that smoking of any household member had on ear infections. They found that living with a smoker increased the risk of ear infections significantly. Interestingly, prenatal smoking of either parent also increased the risk, but not significantly.
The strongest effect second hand smoking had on children was discovered as the risk of surgery for ear infections. The parent's postnatal smoking habit almost doubled the odds that their child would require a surgery. The researchers estimate that almost 300,000 ear infections in the US are attributable to second hand smoke.
Thankfully, my mom didn't smoke or our risk of having ear infections would have been much higher. Also, thankfully, my dad tried rather hard to keep the smoke out of our face. So by reducing our exposure to his exhaled smoke, we didn't have to become one of those second hand smoke and children statistics.
