
If you thought that only smoking is injurious to your health, you may want to think that over. The risk of passive smoking is just as bad, or maybe even worse. Read on for more about it.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure that smoking isn’t good for the health, but it quite possibly requires one to tell these smokers that their bad habit could be harmful to those around them too. If you are one of those people who wasn’t aware how harmful passive smoking could get, you must acquaint yourself with the subject, because the ill effects of this are several. Take a look at what passive smoking really is, before going on to the risk of passive smoking.
What is Passive Smoking
Passive smoking, also known as secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke is the form of inhaling the harmful smoke from a cigarette without really smoking one yourself. Unbelievable as it may sound, studies prove that the risk of getting affected by respiratory problems such as asthma, or even the chances of getting lung cancer are extremely high for a passive smoker. This is because the smoke inhaled by the non-smoker contains higher levels of cancer causing components.
The ill effects of passive smoking can range as far as early death for those exposed to this kind of secondhand smoke. Unfortunately though, the ban implemented on smoking in public places started acting as a looming threat to cigarette manufacturing companies, because of the business angle to it. However, irrespective of all that people know in regard with the effects and dangers of secondhand smoking, there hardly seems to be much that has changed.
Dangers of Secondhand Smoking
If you have ever asked yourself the question what are the risk of passive smoking, read further to find an answer to it…
We’ll get started with the risk of passive smoking for children… Children exposed to parents or anybody else that smokes too much have an increased chance of getting affected by asthma, chest infections, meningitis, amongst other medical conditions. The main cause for this is the fact that the smoke from a single cigarette can linger on in the air for over two hours of the cigarette having been smoked.
In fact, if anything, given the fact that children are more susceptible to most illnesses, extra care must be taken that they do not become victims to passive smoking. Statistics also show that a child who is exposed to this kind of secondhand smoking is breathing in nicotine that is almost 2 cigarettes worth, each day. Inhaling over 4,000 toxins can lead to severe long term for anybody who has to deal with passive smoking, and this is true not only for children, but for pregnant women too who are at terrible risk when in a sensitive condition like that. For those unaware, take a look at the risk of passive smoking during pregnancy.
The first thing that anyone must, most logically, keep in mind is that when an expectant mother is exposed to passive smoke, it is the health of two people that is at risk, and not just very simply, one. The biggest risk that one could be faced with at a time like this would be the fact that the chances of a still born are way higher than it would be in the normal course of things.
The risk of a miscarriage, premature birth, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, leukemia, or even disorders such as ADHD, are rather high. In any case, infants have tiny bodies and lungs, and they breathe rapidly, thus having more of a tendency to get badly affected. It is purely for reasons like these that a pregnant woman must take extra care when around people who smoke a fair bit.
Did you know: An hour a day in a room with a smoker is nearly a hundred times more likely to cause lung cancer in a non-smoker than 20 years spent in a building containing asbestos. (According to a study by Sir Richard Doll, 1985).
People who do not smoke must not feel like they are not at risk just because the cigarette is not in their mouth. The risk of passive smoking are harsh, it is therefore best to keep away when a person is smoking close by. Also if someone is smoking in the house, it would be best to restrict the person from smoking in one room only, rather than polluting the entire place. Minor prevention methods won’t do very much, but they will be better than nothing at all.