Atlanta: Exposing children to secondhand tobacco smoke increases their risk of developing habitual snoring, according to an analysis of existing research.
The results, from 24 studies including nearly 88,000 kids, may create a “teachable moment” for parents to consider quitting smoking, the authors write in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
“Some parents might think that snoring in kids is benign or even cute, but snoring is often the first step towards developing sleep apnea and has been linked to high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease,” said Lucy Popova, a researcher at Georgia State University in Atlanta who wasn’t involved in the study.
“Furthermore, parental smoking and secondhand smoke in children causes multiple other problems — respiratory and ear infections, asthma, SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), and behavioural problems, such as ADHD,” Popova said in an email.
The younger the child, the more vulnerable she or he is — and prenatal exposure to tobacco smoke, when the body is just developing in the womb, is particularly harmful, she added.
The authors, led by Ke Sun of the School of Public Health of Qingdao University in China, combined and reanalysed data from previous studies in a wide range of countries that had compared exposure to tobacco smoke and the risk of habitual snoring in children. — Reuters
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