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Rowan Lee
-Early Childhood-
According to the CDC, there is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoking even if there are designated areas just for smoking. Chemicals in the smoke can affect the brain (cognitive function), interfering with regulating an infant's breathing.
ETS( Environmental Tobacco Smoke) consists of 85% sidestream smoke and 15% mainstream smoke from second-hand smoke, which can cause many effects in children as babies and children have smaller airways than adults. Effects include wheezing and coughing, asthma attacks in children, and ear infections (fluids in the ear more often, which requires frequent draining by having routine operations to put in ear tubes for drainage).
Children affected by second-hand smoking will be sicker often, which as a result, will cause them to miss school and other social events due to the frequent visits to the doctor, for that matter. Furthermore, babies exposed to ETS might be born prematurely or have a weight lower than a conventional baby's expected birth weight.
Children and infants can also suffer from third-hand smoke, which is smoke that lands and stays on nearly every surface in the area where someone has been smoking for an extended period. It's impossible to clean it up, contributing to the effects children may get from second-hand smoking.
Second-hand smoking will also affect children when they enter adulthood, as 60% of smokers in Singapore have at least one parent that is a smoker, which leads to health problems as they grow older, according to the health promotion board.
Hence, adults should stop smoking in the presence of children - for the sake of our children.
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