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How Ets Can Affect Your Children And Why It’s So Dangerous

Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) can still affect other people even if smokers are refraining from smoking indoors and in vehicles. There is no full proof way to avoid ETS affecting your children and it’s important that you consider what affect your bad habit may be having on your child.

Many smoking parents believe that if they don’t smoke in their homes or in their cars, they are protecting their children from the affects of smoke. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

ETS affecting your children Cigarette smoke causes problems like lung cancer, asthma, emphysema, acid reflux, GERD and other medical disorders. This information isn’t new to most people, however, what may be new is the fact that other people can still be affected by your cigarette habit and if you have children, the last thing you want for your child is to have to deal with being sick or hurt. Most parents can’t even imagine intentionally harming their children.

Even when you’re smoking outside, the smoke clings to your hair, your skin and your clothing. Touching your child or simply being in the same room as your child can still be detrimental to their health because the smoke clinging to your skin, hair and clothes is emitting harmful chemicals into the air.

The toxins that clinging smoke emit into the air are known as environmental tobacco smoke or ETS. They can be re-suspended and can sometimes be react vapor-phase components, which in turns causes the smoke to be inhaled repeatedly.

Children’s bodies are much more susceptible to the affects of ETS than an adult. ETS has also been linked to SIDS, ADHD, poor cognitive performance in school, mental retardation, behavioral disorders and other diseases.

Smoke sticks to hair, skin, nails, clothes and furniture for months after an individual has quit.

When I first began reading information about ETS, I literally felt sick. Even though I’m not a smoker, this has been a fear of mine since having my daughter. To discover that there is scientific information regarding the affects of cigarette smoke on people, particularly children, even if they are not directly exposed to the smoke, was shocking.

As a non-smoker, it’s simple for me to be judgmental of smokers who feel it’s their right to smoke whenever and wherever they choose. On one hand, I get the addiction and the feeling of need to smoke, however, I admittedly do not understand it.

I say that I don’t understand it because to me, smoking is a choice. It may not be a choice for someone anymore, but it started out as a choice. As humans, we are not born smoking. We are born needing the basics in life; water, food and shelter. If we choose to stick something poisonous in our bodies, well, that’s our own stupidity, but if what you’re doing is affecting the people around you, particularly children who aren’t given a choice, I feel it’s time that we all grow up and stop being so selfish. It truly is a time for positive change.

Tags: addiction, children, cigarettes, Environmental tobacco smoke, habit, health, second hand smoke, smoking

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