PASSIVE SMOKING

Passive smoking is also known as second hand smoke. Tabacco smoke has about four-thousand chemicals, including two-hundred known poisons. Every time a person smokes, poisons such as benzene, formaldehyde, and carbon monoxide are released into the air, which means that not only is the smoker inhaling them but so is everyone around the smoker. Studies show that passive smoking can even cause lung cancer and heart disease.

Every time a person smokes, tabacco enters the air from two sources. Those two sources are called mainstream smoke and sidestream smoke. Mainstream smoke is the smoke that the smoker pulls through the mouthpiece when he inhales or puffs. Sidestream smoke goes directly into the air from the burning tobacco.

Not only is this decision going to effect her, but it will effect the others around her.

Sidestream smoke is more dangerous for people to inhale. A non-smoker inhales this whenever they're around someone who is smoking. Sidestream smoke actually has higher concentrations of some harmful compounds than the mainstream smoke the smoker inhales. The smoke at the end of a burning cigarette has more particles that are smaller and more harmful than the mainstream smoke. They go deeper into the lung tissue and do more damage. Carbon monoxide causes a greater lack of oxygen in non-smokers. With reduced oxygen, the heart, lungs, and brain cannot function properly. This leads to permanent brain and vascular change. Studies show that there are several cancer-causing substances as well as more tar and nicotine in sidestream smoke than mainstream smoke, and it can cause death from heart disease.

Many studies show that in a person's first wo years of life, babies of parents who smoke at home have a much higher rate of lung diseases such as bronchitis and pneumonia than babies with non-smoking parents. Infants and children have tender tissues and are more susceptible to passive smoke. Acute repiratory illnesses happen twice as often to young children whose parents smoke even if they are without asthma. Passive smoke exposure is associated with 150,000 to 300,000 cases of chronic bronchitis and pneumonia in children younger than eighteen months. Exposure to smoker can help people develop many lung problems, such as allergies, asthma, and heart problems. A study involving children from five years-old to nine years-old showed impaired lung function in youths who had smoking parents as compared with children whose parents were non-smokers. Smoking by pregnant women seems to predispose premature babies to respiratory distress syndrome. Parents who smoke at home can aggravate symptoms in some children with asthma and even trigger asthma episodes.