Secondhand smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers.

Secondhand smoke can make children suffer serious health risks.

• Secondhand smoke is particularly dangerous to children
• Breathing secondhand smoke can make children experience more serious health conditions such as
• Asthma
• SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)
• Bronchitis
• Pneumonia
• Ear infections
• Secondhand smoke is responsible from some 150,000 to 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia and bronchitis in children younger than 18 months
• Second hand smoke increases the number of asthma attacks and increases the severity of symptoms in approximately 200,000 to 1 million children who suffer from asthma
• Secondhand smoke is responsible for respiratory infections resulting in 7500 to 15,000 hospitalizations each year.

How to protect your children

• Choose not to smoke in the home and car, and do not allow family members or visitors to smoke there either.
• Do not allow childcare providers or others who work in your home to smoke.
• Until you quit, choose to smoke outside the house, moving to another room or opening a window is not enough to protect your child.
• Society of Actuaries report annual cost of excess medical care, mortality and morbidity from second hand smoke exposure is $10 billion.
  • $5 billion in direct medical costs and $5 billion in indirect costs such as lost wages, reduce services and costs associated with disabilities
• Secondhand smoke has been classified by the EPA as a known cause of cancer in humans
• Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths and 35,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the US each year.
• Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke were 25% more likely to have coronary heart diseases compared to nonsmokers not exposed to smoke.
• Nonsmokers exposed to second hand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effect.
• Levels of secondhand smoke in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers.