Hyderabad, May 28: On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day, doctors in the city highlighted that passive tobacco smoking at home is a significant risk factor for children in development of asthma as their lungs are still developing and they breathe faster than adults thereby inhaling more smoke. Of all asthma patients, 49 per cent of them have a history of growing up with smoking parents and could have developed asthma due to the early exposure to tobacco smoke.
Combined exposure to passive smoking from parents during childhood and further from spouse during adulthood increases the risk of developing asthma in a person by 69 per cent.
Children who already have asthma, when exposed to passive tobacco smoking at home often experience worsening of their symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, breathlessness and are also at an increased risk of getting an asthma attack. These children are therefore more likely to require emergency treatment, even hospitalization.
Also, it has now been well established that the efficacy of asthma medicines is significantly reduced when the asthma patient is surrounded by smokers.
According to Dr Shyam Sunder Raj, senior consultant pulmonologist said, “Parents should realize that cigarette smoking not only causes irreversible damage to their own lungs, but could also result in the development of asthma in their kids who were not born with it. Even breathing in very small amounts of tobacco smoke could set off a severe attack in children with asthma and these attacks would be worse than those suffered by children with asthma who are not exposed to tobacco smoke.” He further added, “Children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy are more likely to have respiratory problems and have increased chances of developing asthma. Early exposure to tobacco smoke at home affects the growth of the lungs in a child and will develop respiratory ailments.” In adults, cigarette smoking and asthma is associated with poor symptom control, reduction in response to asthma medication and an accelerated decline in lung function.
Asthma is a chronic respiratory disorder of the lungs in which there is inflammation (swelling) of the airways in our lungs. Due to this inflammation, the airways are narrowed and the lung becomes vulnerable to various allergens that act as triggers for an asthma attack. Cigarette smoke is one of the major allergens that trigger asthma.
For more information on asthma, visit www.breathefree.com
—Agencies