Imagine a little child, less than eight months old with his fragile body pale and weak surrounded by the depressing white walls of a hospital and the child breathing it’s last, it’s an image that is likely to clench your heart and make it bleed but these aren’t just words building up a fictional image but hard core reality of our world. Every year between 200,000 and 1,000,000 kids with Asthma have their condition aggravated by secondhand smoke.
Bronchitis, pneumonia, middle ear infection and subsequent hearing loss are the names of some of the many problems caused by Secondhand smoke to children and this is just a glimpse into what is an inferno of ghastly diseases caused by secondhand smoke to very innocent children. United States has estimated that some 50 -75% of children have considerable levels of cotinine in their bloodstream. This is the extent to which second hand smoke has invaded the lives of children and effected it in the most painful way possible.
Smoke released by cigarettes, pipes or cigars and smokers, for that matter, is called secondhand smoke which contains 4000 substances, 50 out of which are potent enough to cause cancer in humans and animals. Children need to be protected from secondhand smoke for they have much faster breathing rate; taking in a lot more air than their body weight and if that air is infested with Secondhand smoke, their body absorbs it too and add to it a not so strong immunity system and it all leads you to lungs with much decreased efficiency and increased upper respiratory tract irritation, increased danger of asthma and a reduced oxygen supply to tissues.
The most horrifying aspect of it is that it leaves lifelong impact on a child’s life or may even result in a painful death as recorded by Centers for Disease control, nearly 2300 children die of SIDS and those who do survive their infancy are haunted by painful Asthma attacks and it’s all downhill from there.
Secondhand smoke is like a nightmare for children that needs to be fought with resilience if one wants to protect his child. Every member of the family needs to stop smoking or smoke outdoors which will make the smoke disappear much faster. Similarly, smoking in the car needs to be avoided. It should be made sure that the school to which a child goes is smoke-free and that the child is also kept away from public places where smoking is concentrated. Children need to be protected from secondhand smoke in everyway possible. They deserve a healthy, smoke-free life.
