Is parental smoking killing our future grandchildren?

Women who breathe in secondhand smoke as children are more likely to miscarry and experience fertility problems, finds a new study.

Researchers suggest that deadly toxins in seconhand smoke may permanently damage women's bodies, leading to problems in adulthood.

Researchers from the University of Rochester in New York studied 4,800 women treated at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Each women provided detailed information of all past pregnancies, including attempts to conceive and miscarriages, as well as their history of smoking and breathing in secondhad smoke.

30% of all women lost one or more babies, and 11% reported difficulties becoming pregnant.

But more shocking is that women who were subject to secondhand smoke as children were 40% more likely to have miscarried and 26% more likely to have difficulty conceiving children. Over half of these women grew up on homes with smokers as parents.

These study results, the researchers note, support further restructions on tobacco smoking.

Recent research out of New York state suggests that smokers who have kids are more likely to quit because they care about their children's health. Now smoking parents have one more concern to add to the list: If their children keep breathing in secondsmoke, will they ever have grandchildren?

Article from the MailOnline

Got kids? Get healthy... NY survey reveals smokers with kids are more likely to quit

We've all heard the popular messages about quitting smoking. "It's good for your health." "You'll breathe easier." "Non-smokers live longer." So why are over 20% of American adults still smoking?

Perhaps they just don't have the right incentive- kids.

Yes, that's right. According to a New York state Department of Health survey, kids are a good incentive for adult smokers to quit. In fact, smokers living with kids are 76% more likely to try to quit smoking, 42% of smokers with children don't allow smoking in their home, and 60% of smokers living with children want to quit smoking "a lot."

So what is it about living with kids that's making smokers want to toss out their favorite brands?

Dr. Richard Daines, New York state's health commissioner, suggests that the health risks to others can be a greater incentive for smokers to quit than the dangers it poses to themselves.
"People who won't quit smoking for themselves are generally more likely to quit smoking for their children,'' said Daines.

In other words, I may be okay with hurting myself, but I'm less inclined to want to hurt my kid.

Parents who smoke around their kids increase their risk for asthma episodes, colds, ear infections, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

By putting down the pack, parents may decrease their kid's number of schools sick days and doctor visits, and also increase their own chance to live a healthy, breathe-easy life.

And for those of us without kids?

Perhaps we can just focus on that fact that smoking harms the people around us. And maybe that will provide another motivation to quit.

Article from 1010wins

N-O-T Your Traditional Support Group: Empowering Teens to Reclaim Their Youth

In recent years, efforts to prevent teen smoking have had little effect. While ads by the Truth and Above the Influence campaigns are creatively targeting youth by appealing to teenagers’ desires for independence and rebellion, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has indicated that the smoking rates among high school students has remained constant over the past five years.

While it is estimated that 20% of high school students regularly smoke cigarettes, the failure of antismoking campaigns is frustrating to those in the medical field. Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, notes “When I see a young kid smoking, it's just so frustrating because I actually know the power of tobacco to cause disease." Dr. Brawley also acknowledges how difficult it is for teens to quit smoking, even if they want to.

Peer pressure is only one of the stumbling blocks which teens must endure when attempting to quit smoking. Often teens do not know how to seek help from health care providers without their parents’ knowledge.

What is most frustrating is that while researchers and health care providers have an arsenal of means to help adults to quit smoking, the same resources are not available for teens. Currently the FDA does not approve of the use of nicotine patches, gum, lozenges, or other smoking cessation products for those under the age of 18.

There is one option which teenagers do have: Support groups.

Cassie Graham, a high school senior from Farifax County, Virginia, says it’s worth a try. While she started smoking at the age of 15, Cassie notes the difficulties that she is facing with her addiction, "It's getting pretty bad. It used to be fun and now I have to smoke. I know that it's not normal to smoke all the time, and I have to find some way to quit."

Fortunately, Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County provides Cassie and other smokers with a tool in quitting smoking. During her free periods, Cassie is able to partake in a 10-week smoking-cessation class.

Cassie admits, "I'm not of legal age to smoke. So I was kind of skeptical at first, like 'Am I going to get in trouble for going to this class?”

Samuel Wagner, a substance abuse counselor at the school, cites Cassie’s concern as being common among participants in the program. The aim of the school’s Not-on-Tobacco (N-O-T) program is to provide the teens with support, and not cause them to feel like they are going to be reprimanded or disciplined for engaging in the habit.

Created by the American Lung Association over 10 years ago, the N-O-T program has been helping kids ages 14-19 who wish to quit smoking. At Robinson Secondary School the program has helped 37% of the enrollees to quit, and 60% to reduce their use of cigarettes.

On “Quit Day” the teens of Fairfax County cited many reasons for wishing to kick the habit. Most admitted to concerns over the costly nature of the habit, but more profound was the concern of the health effects of smoking.

One participant, Lia Pisa-Relli, worries about developing breathing problems. Having started smoking five years ago at the age of 12, she admitted to already seeing the health effects at the young age of 17, "I want to be able to run. I can't even run up the stairs. I can't even walk up two flights of stairs. It's pretty bad."

Like most of the group Lia does not wish to be a part of the statistics. Nearly half of all adults in the United States who suffer from emphysema and 40 percent with chronic bronchitis are smokers. Lia wants to prevent her health from getting worse.

Counselors of the N-O-T program want to help the teens with this not so simple task. While discussion of nicotine withdrawal symptoms is helpful, the most effective part of the program is the support that the teenagers give each other.

Teens like Cassie know the road ahead will not be simple, but by having the opportunity to quit smoking with the support of peers, the task at hand isn’t so daunting.

For more information on the American Lung Association's N-O-T Program, click here.

(Source - CNN 11/17)