Children can be smoking without you knowing.

Is your child smoking?  For most parents, the answer is obvious: No way!  But is the smell of cigarette smoke present in your home? Do you smoke indoors or outside around your kids?  Do your neighbors or someone nearby smoke and the smell is making its way into your home?  If so, your answer could be yes.

While the risks of secondhand smoke are well known, professionals, doctors, and other experts are starting to describe the issue a little differently by calling it something else: passive smoking.

We all know that children, even adults for that matter, should not smoke.  When calling it second-hand, it tends to lessen the apparent severity of the issue as if the danger is second-hand as well, but “passive smoking” makes it clear that the risk is just as severe for children as lighting up a cigarette directly.

Passive smoking means breathing tobacco smoke from someone else’s cigarette, and if you can smell it, there’s a good chance you are also experiencing some of the risks of smoking it.

Risks To Children

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, lung capacity does not reach its maximum capacity until somewhere between the ages of 20 and 30.  This means that passive smoking in children and young adults can seriously impair lung function and growth.  This could increase the risk of stroke by as much as 30% later in adulthood as well as increasing the likelihood of developing COPD later in life.

Solutions At Home

The first step to take towards preventing your children from passively smoking is to remove the source of smoke from your environment.  If you are a parent or family member smoking with kids, please do so in a far removed place from your child.  If you are in an apartment, or housing environment where you are unable to avoid the source, try using an air purifier to capture and remove the smoke particles and odors before they reach your child.

Best Air Purifiers for Smoke

Air purifiers that use high performance HEPA filters along with activated carbon or other additives can do a great job of filtering out airborne particles and chemicals produced by cigarettes.

If you cannot completely remove the source of the smoke and avoid its smell in your home environment, an air purifier is a great way to reduce your exposure to these particles.

See Our Best Air Purifiers For Smoke

External Source: Passive Smoking in Childhood Increases COPD Risk