from journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research
Smoking while pregnant is a well-known risk of harm to the fetus, but Canadian researchers say smoking after the baby is born could be just as bad. University of Montreal scientists say by age ten, children exposed to cigarette smoke, even intermittently, had larger waists and weighed more—almost as much as the influence of smoking while pregnant. Dr. Linda Pagani says exposure to tobacco smoke early in childhood could be influencing endocrine imbalances and altering brain development during a critical time of a child’s growth. She reported in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research that parents need to be sensitive to the noxious effects of tobacco smoke in the home, since young children are more affected than adults by similar levels of smoke.