Smoking is also related to hormonal problems for both men and women. Female smokers enter menopause an average of five years earlier than nonsmokers. Smoking and nicotine can alter a number of hormones involved in reproduction. Women who smoke are at increased risk of osteoporosis. In men, smoking reduces sperm mobility.
Smoke also can affect a non-smoker.
When a nonsmoker marries a smoker, the nonsmoker's risk of lung cancer and heart disease doubles. Infants and children of smokers develop many lung problems, including allergies, asthma, chronic bronchitis and heart problems. Children of parents who smoke are hospitalized more frequently for bronchitis and pneumonia during their first year of life and have more acute respiratory illnesses before the age of two. They also have more coughs and phlegm and may develop more chronic ear infections. Babies born to moms who smoke tend to have lower birth weights than those of nonsmoking mothers.