Daily HealthBeat Tip - October 15, 2007

Cleaning your kids’ air

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Kids can breathe smoke even when nobody wants them to.

It’s secondhand smoke, from being around smokers. A Surgeon General’s report says any secondhand smoke is bad for kids. And the Surgeon General’s Office and the American Academy of Pediatrics are asking pediatricians to remind parents of that.

The president of the doctors’ organization, Jay Berkelhamer, says parents should quit if they can, and not smoke anywhere near kids if they can’t.

For some kids, that’s especially important. Tezrah Thomas is the mother of a boy with asthma. She used to smoke right outside her home:

``At the time, I didn’t realize that the smoke that lingered in my hair and creeped in from outside was still affecting my baby’s health. And as a result, we had many visits to the hospital.’’ (11 seconds)

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May, 26 2008