From: harryb@phred.UUCP (harry barnett)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Babies and Cigarette Smoke
Date: 11 Dec 92 16:13:20 GMT
Reply-To: harryb@phred.UUCP
Organization: Physio-Control

In article 4971@crl.LABS.TEK.COM, sjk@strl.labs.tek.com (Steven King) writes:
>In article <1992Dec7.155044@cs.utwente.nl>, stadt@cs.utwente.nl (Richard van de Stadt) writes:
>
>|> Hi all,
>|> 
>|> I wonder how bad it is for young babies to be in a room where
>|> people smoke. My wife quit smoking as soon as she knew she was
>|> pregnant (she knew the next day :-) to not 'intoxicate' the baby.
>|> 
>|> Now that the baby has been born (Tim, 5 november) we told visitors
>|> not to smoke. They understand and I am very pleased, since I think
>|> it smells very badly. The smell keeps hanging around when the 
>|> visitors have long gone home. 
>|> 
>|> What I would like to know is if it is at all dangerous to have a baby 
>|> in a room where people smoke. I hear people say 1 month would be nice
>|> because only then the lungs are strong enough to cope with it.
>|> 
>|> Any experiences?
>
>The studies I've read conclude that exposure to cigarette smoke during
>the first three years of life double the instance of athsma and respiratory
>infections as an adult.  While these studies were performed (as I recall)
>with parents who smoked, it shows that little lungs can't "handle" the
>toxins.
>

I know of one family who was one of the data points in such a study.
The mother was diagnosed with "pregnancy-induced hypertension turning
to pre-eclampsia (sp?)" and spent the last three weeks before delivery
flat on her back before Caesarean delivery.  She produced a healthy
premature 4 lb boy six weeks early.  The delay of three weeks was
represented to be for the purpose of allowing the foetus' lungs to
develop enough to move it into a higher probability of survival
bracket.

At the child's 5YO check-up the mother was orally briefed by the
pediatrician (who was the delivering pediatrician) that she and the
baby had been a "data point" and the doctor's observations were
published somewhere (I don't remember where).

The "study" (hard to reconstruct) involved just two patients of his:
however, the reason he did the work and wrote it up was because good
fortune decreed that he would have available to him two nearly
identical "specimens".  All the conditions of the study were remarkably
close to the same for the mothers and babies, except for one feature,
which I'll note in a moment.

The following list of similarities is not complete.  Similarities
included:  40YO healthy, white females, similar physiological
characteristics, pre-eclamptic at about the same time, delivered boys
within a month of each other (same hospital, same OB, same pediatrician
(naturally:-)), similar economic conditions and family status.  Both
mothers had voluntarily adopted a rigorous regimen re no pharmaceuticals
and no alcohol use during pregnancy.  Both mothers had previously
miscarried one or more times.  Both fathers were approx.  40YO white
males, good health.  Mothers and babies spent about the same time in
care after delivery, both breast fed.  The list of similarities between
the two families, evan going back a couple of generations, was amazing,
and it was just lucky (for the doctor) that he had a built-in study
fall in his lap.

Virtually the only significant difference between the environment of
the two babies, pre-delivery and post-delivery, was that Mother S
smoked during and after pregnancy, and Mother N did not smoke, avoided
tobacco smoke while pregnant, and deliberately and continuously removed
the baby from a tobacco smoke environment as soon as practicable after
encountering it.

The difference between the first five years of the two children's life
was too pronounced to ignore.

Child N was healthy from the get-go, went home within a week, and never
re-entered the hospital for anything to age 5.  All regular check-ups
revealed a child in rosy health, who rapidly increased in weight and
length until well within the norm.  [This situation is still true, at
nearly 10YO, strong swimmer, runner, and gymnast, excellent student.]

Child S had a touch and go time of it from the beginning, spent most of
his first six months in the hospital, was generally sickly and was
hospitilized repeatedly through age 5 for various and sundry
"respiratory ailments".  Child S, birth weight about 3 oz lower, did
not develop as expected and was still in the lower 5 percentile for
physical size at age five.  As a side note, the Child S's health was so
marginal that it significantly impacted Family S's life style.

Agreed, this is only a data point of one, but to take a line from
*Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer*:  "Now you may think there's no
harm to children from smoking, but as for me and Grandpa, we believe!"

harryb@phred

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Brittanius (shocked):  Caesar, this is not proper.
Theodotus (outraged):  How?
Caesar (recovering his self possession):  Pardon him, Theodotus:  He is
a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and islands are
the laws of nature.

		--Caesar and Cleopatra, Act II, George Bernard Shaw
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Newsgroups: misc.kids