Babies Smoke When Parents Do
Source: Reuters
Date: 20th June 2007
Babies with at least one parent who smokes have five times as much cotinine, a nicotine by-product, in their urine than infants whose parents are non-smokers, UK researchers report.
"Our findings clearly show that by accumulating cotinine, babies become heavy passive smokers secondary to the active smoking of parents," Dr. Mike Wailoo of the University of Leicester and colleagues write in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
"This is the first time we've got direct information on the effect of smoking in homes on babies," Wailoo told Reuters Health. "It clarifies and I think it firms up information that we all thought we had." He added that cotinine is just one of thousands of potentially harmful nicotine by products that can accumulate in infants' bodies.
Parental smoking is a leading risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome, Wailoo and his colleagues note in their report.
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