HHS HealthBeat (July 28, 2006)

Parents smoke, kids sneeze

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

Would you give your toddler a cigarette? Some people do. They just don't do it directly. They smoke, and their kids breathe in the smoke. And the kids' bodies apparently don't like it. A study suggests the smoke aggravates hay fever.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati looked at data on one-year-olds in at least pack-a-day households. Jocelyn Biagini tells what they found:

"Infants that were exposed to this level of environmental tobacco smoke were almost three times more likely to develop hay fever than those that were not exposed." (seven seconds)

The study in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Biagini suspects the kids had a tendency toward hay fever – runny noses, sneezes and the like – and the smoke aggravated the allergic reaction. She recommends parents not smoke around their kids.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

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

Last revised: August, 15 2006