Children are the most passive captors of all when it comes to breathing in second-hand smoke. Made up of a complex mixture of more than 4,000 chemical compounds, including at least 40 known carcinogens, tobacco smoke also contains carbon monoxide which inhibits the blood's ability to carry oxygen to vital organs. While the effects of passive smoking on adults are well documented, the implications for the very young are even more horrifying.
The Royal College of Physicians in its recent report, Smoking and the Young, estimates that 17,000 children under the age of five are admitted to UK hospitals every year with illnesses resulting from passive smoking. A recent report from the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health emphasises the fact that children are at greatest risk in their homes and evidence links second-hand smoke with an increased risk of pneumonia and bronchitis, asthma attacks, middle-ear disease, decreased lung function and sudden infant death syndrome.
New research carried out by the US Children's Environmental Health Center team also highlights that passive smoking can dull young brains. Children aged between six and 16 who were consistently exposed to smoke were shown to achieve lower test results in maths and English.
The good news is that the Government's determination to restrict smoking in public places will have a positive knock-on effect for children. Its white paper published in November proposes a ban in most public places to be phased in over the next four years.
However, campaigners are concerned that the legislation does not extend to the home where the problem is most acute. In the light of this, parents need to understand smoke is an form indoor pollutant that should be controlled and, if possible, eliminated.
While kicking the habit altogether and creating a smoke-free environment for a child is the best option, this is not always realistic, and research shows that poor and disadvantaged families are most at risk when it comes to addiction.
In England, for example, only 12 per cent of women and 17 per cent of men in the highest socio-economic group smoke. In the lowest socio-economic group, corresponding figures are more than twice as high, at 33 per cent and 37 per cent respectively.
Professor Gerard Hasting from the Centre for Social Marketing at the University of Strathclyde says, 'Quitting smoking is something you can do if you feel able to make a difference to your life. The lower down the scale you are, the less this is likely to be so. At the bottom of the socio-economic scale, the amount of smokers has not shifted in the past 40 years.'
Joanna Nelson, health team leader at Sure Start Ribbleton in Preston, corroborates that disadvantaged families are more likely to smoke as a way of coping with their situation, 'A lot of the families we work with are under pressure with issues such as housing and transport,' she says. 'These accumulate to put stress and pressure on families and the response for some people is to smoke.'
Local Sure Start services are on the front line of tackling the risk to children in disadvantaged areas. The Government has set a target of March 2006 for a 6 per cent reduction in the proportion of mothers who continue to smoke during pregnancy, as well as a target to reduce by 10 per cent the number of children aged four and below living in Sure Start Local Programme and Children's Centre areas admitted to hospital with a lower respiratory tract infection.
Tackling risk is not just about finding ways to make parents give up.
Debbie Barnes, programme manager at Gainsborough Sure Start, says, 'We provide support for those parents who want to give up smoking, but we don't alienate those who don't.'
Among a range of initiatives is the Smoke Free Zones project, which encourages families to sign up to not smoking in the presence of children.
'It's a good start for parents who do not want to give up smoking but still want to do something positive for the health of their child,' says Ms Barnes. 'It is also a step towards giving up smoking because they have to leave the social situation to smoke.'
