Smoking

Secondhand Smoke and Your Family

• Secondhand smoke is the smoke breathed out by smokers and the smoke from the burning end of a cigarette, cigar, or pipe. The smoke from the burning end of a cigarette has many harmful chemicals.
• Secondhand smoke is also called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS); exposure to secondhand smoke is called involuntary smoking, or passive smoking.
• It is not to avoid secondhand smoke because about one in four people smoke.

Why Should You Worry About Secondhand Smoke?

• Secondhand smoke causes about 3,000 deaths each year from lung cancer in people who don't smoke.

• Secondhand smoke causes irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat.

• Secondhand smoke can also irritate the lungs, leading to coughing, excessive phlegm and chest discomfort.

• Secondhand smoke has been linked with the onset of chest pain and is associated with death from heart disease in 37,000 people each year. Don't smoke in your home. Ask other people not to smoke in your home especially babysitters or others who may care for your children.

Secondhand Smoke Especially Hurts Children!

• Children who breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to suffer from pneumonia, bronchitis, and other lung diseases.

• Children who breathe secondhand smoke have more ear infections.

• Children who breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to develop asthma.

• Children who have asthma and who breathe secondhand smoke have more asthma attacks.

There are an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 cases every year of infections, such as bronchitis and pneumonia, in infants and children under 18 months of age who breathe secondhand smoke. These result in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations!

How Can You Protect Yourself and Your Family?

• Here are some ways to protect yourself and your family from secondhand smoke:
• Don't smoke in your home.
• Ask other people not to smoke in your home, especially baby-sitters or others who may care for your children.
• Ask smokers to go outside while they smoke.
• If someone must smoke inside, limit them to rooms where windows can be opened or fans can be used to send the smoke outside.
• Help people who are trying to quit smoking.

Smoking and Pregnancy

There's Never Been a Better Time to Quit

Smoking rates are going down among Americans. However, the smoking rates among women are going down more slowly than among men. In fact, among high school seniors, teenage girls now smoke as much as or more than teenage boys.

When young women who smoke start to think about having children, they also need to think about quitting smoking. The best time to quit is when a woman plans to get pregnant in the near future. Or she needs to think about quitting after she finds out that she is pregnant, which will be better for her own health and for that of her baby.

Pregnancy is a great time to quit smoking and stay quit after the baby is born.

Here are some questions that are often asked about smoking and pregnancy:

Q: will a woman gain extra weight if she quits smoking during pregnancy?

A: A woman needs to gain weight during pregnancy. An unborn baby depends on the mother to eat the right foods. So, if she stays away from junk foods and sweets, the mother's weight gain will be fine. And she needs to exercise. Her doctor can help her plan how to keezp active; brisk walking is good for most women.

Even if a pregnant woman gains a few extra pounds, she can lose it after the baby's born. And speaking of how she looks, the woman can think about how smoking stains her teeth and fingers. It makes her clothes and her breath smell bad. And smoking may even add more skin wrinkles.

What If You Smoke?

• Never smoke around children.
• Children are especially sensitive to the dangers of secondhand smoke.
• If you smoke, try to smoke only in an open area away from your family,.
• Many of the substances stay in the air even after the cigarette, cigar, or pipe is gone.

What Can You Do to Protect Yourself and Your Family Outside of Your Home?

• Let family, friends and people you work with know that you do care if they smoke around you.
• In your car, do not smoke or allow others to smoke while the windows are rolled up.
• In restaurants and bars, ask to sit in the non-smoking area.
• Make sure your child's day-care, school and after-school programs are smoke-free.
• Ask your employer to make sure you do not have to breathe other people's smoke at work. New studies show that if a woman's a partner smokes near her during her pregnancy, there are added risks.

Q: How about cutting down on cigarettes rather than quitting for good

A: The only way to really protect your unborn baby is to quit. Cutting down is better than doing nothing but it may not make things much better for the baby.

If a pregnant woman cuts down or switches to low-tar cigarettes, she must be careful not to inhale more deeply or take more puffs to get the same amount of nicotine as before.

Q: Does it matter when the pregnant woman quites smoking?

A: The best time to quit is when the woman thinks she will get pregnant in the near future. If she does quit, her baby will probably weigh the same as the baby of a woman who has never smoked. Or if she quits within the first three or four months of her pregnancy she can lower her baby's chance of being born too small and with lots of health problems.

Many women are able to quit during pregnancy. It is easier than other times when they tried to quit. They can quit now for their babies as well as for themselves.

If the woman feels sick in the first couple of months, cigarettes may taste bad, and so it is easier to quit.

Even if a woman quits at the end of her pregnancy, she can help her baby get more oxygen and have a better chance of making it. It's never too late to quit, but the earlier the better for both the mother and her baby!

Q: What about other people smoking around the pregnant women?

A: New studies show that if a woman's partner smokes near her during her pregnancy, there are added risks. She has a greater chance of having a baby that weighs too little and may have health problems.

So, a pregnant woman should ask her partner, and other people as well, not to smoke near her.

Q: Does quitting smoking provide benefits for the women as well as for her baby?

A: Pregnancy is a great time for a woman to quit. No matter how long she has been smoking, her body benefits from quitting. She will feel better and have more energy to go through the pregnancy and to care for her new baby.

Of course, she will also avoid many of the future health risks of smoking such as heart disease, cancer and other lung problems. AND she will save money that she can spend on herself and her new baby.

Q: If a woman quits smoking during pregnancy, will she have a hard time handling the stress?

A: She can learn to relax in other ways that are much better for her and the unborn baby. When she feels tense, she can take some deep breaths or chew sugarless gum, She can also do something with her hands like sew something for the baby or call a friend.

These are safer ways to handle stress. She can also remind herself that smoking will not make things any better.

Q: We know that a woman should not smoking during pregnancy, but is it alright to go back to smoking after the baby is born?

A: It makes no sense at all for her to go back to smoking! Even after the baby is born, her smoking can hurt the baby. Babies have very small lungs and airways which get even smaller when they breathe smoke-filled air. Smoking can make it hard for the baby to breathe. It can cause lung problems like bronchitis and pneumonia that could put the baby back in the hospital.

Babies of smokers also get more colds, coughs and middle-ear infections. Mothers should also ask people like family, friends, baby sitters, and day care workers not to smoke in any areas near the baby.

Q: If a mother who smokes breast feeds her baby, does the nicotine get into her milk?

A: Breast feeding is a good way to feed a new baby but smoking may cause problems. Nicotine is a poison in cigarettes. So if the mother smokes, the baby drinks the poison in her breast milk.

Q: Don't some mothers smoke during pregnancy and have healthy babies?

A: They are the lucky ones! If a woman smokes during pregnancy she takes a big chance with her baby's health. There is a greater chance that she will lose the baby during pregnancy, The baby could also be born too early, before the lungs are ready, so he or she will have trouble breathing.

Why take a chance when there is so much to lose?

Q: Babies often weigh less when less when the mother smokes. isn't it easier to deliver a small baby?

A: It is not always easier to deliver a low-birth weight baby. And a baby that weighs too little is often sick with lots of health problems. Smaller babies are more likely to need special care and stay longer in the hospital. Some may die either at birth or within the first year.

Q: are there any long-term harmful effects on the baby if the mother smokes during pregnancy?

A: Yes, there can be. Smoking during pregnancy may mean that after the child is born it will have more colds and other lung problems.

These children may also be slower learners in school. And they may be shorter and smaller than children of nonsmokers. And, of course, they are more likely to smoke when they get older because they see their parents smoking.

Q: Does cigarette smoke get through to the unborn baby?

A: Yes, when the mother smokes, so does the baby. Smokers take in poisons such as nicotine and carbon monoxide (the same gas that comes out of a car's exhaust pipe). These poisons get into the
placenta, which is the tissue that connects the mother and the baby before it is born. These poisons
keep the unborn baby from getting the food and oxygen needed to grow.
A smoker needs to learn about her (own smoking habit and plan ways To cope with urges To smoke after quiting.

How Can the Pregnant Smoker Get Help in Quitting?

Here are some ways to get started:

• She can ask for help from her doctor or nurse and from family and friends.
• She can make a list of her reasons for wanting to quit, for herself as well as for her baby.
• Set a Quit-Date; the sooner the better. If a woman is not ready to set a date, she can begin to cut down on smoking. Then, she can make a plan to stop all smoking in the near future.
• Ask for stop-smoking materials and read them. A smoker needs to learn about her own smoking habit and plan ways to cope with urges to smoke after she quits. She can try the four D's: Delay, Deep Breathe, Drink Water, and Do Something Else.
• If a woman slips and goes back to smoking, she should first find out what caused the slip and then she can keep trying to quit again until she makes it for good. The only failure is if she stops trying.
• When she stops smoking, she shows that she wants to raise her baby in a smoke-free world.

American Lung Association's Fact Sheet on Smoking and Pregnancy