Second Hand Smoke

[stacyD85]

Hi everyone,

I had my son 5 months ago and so far things have been going well. Recently, I read a few articles about second hand smoke and how it affects child growth. I've been trying to get my husband to quit smoking or atleast to stay away from the child when he does smoke. However, he tells me to not buy into any of this bullshit. Is it really as bad as people make it out to be?

I'm sorry but your DH is wrong. It's every bit as bad as the articles say.

Oh this does make me laugh (although sadly isn't funny)

My Dad, now in his 70s moans about all the elderly and middle aged smokers who claim that they didn't know how bad it was for them when they started because he reckons it was well known smoking was harmful when he was a teen.

This is the same, wishful thinking and selectiveness on the part of your DH.

Wasn't a child removed recently because his parents refused to stop smoking around him? Although I'm sure there was more to it than that, it's a big problem.

It's not just your child's growth that could be affected but almost all aspects of his health.

My DH is very insistent on not quitting but from the general consensus it does seem that that's not an environment I want my child in. What can I do to get my DH to quit?

He knows he's kidding himself.
My mum, who smoked since her early teens, who paid extra into her pension so she could afford to smoke in her retirement, who chain smoked after my dad died, gave up smoking aged 79 when my dd (now 8 ) was born. She has dreadful COPD as a result of a lifetime of smoking but I am SOO impressed and proud of her. She really was the kind of person who you'd think would never give up. She thought all the anti smoking stuff was exaggerated and argued that she paid enough in tax on cigs to pay any medical cost of smoking. And she still gave up. And has more time with her fifth grandchild and her other now grown up grandchildren as a consequence.
If my mum can give up, your dh can, at least, do what he can to minimise the impact of cigarettes on his little one.
Also, I didn't realise how much I stank of fags from growing up in a smoking household until I left home.
If your dh still doesnâ??t believe the health stuff, he must accept that he will make his child stink. Sorry to be so blunt.

He doesn't have to give up, he does have to go outside at the least. Your post sounds like he's smoking inside

Smoking is extremely harmful.

Second hand smoke (and even other ways of transferring the toxic substances like breath and touch) can be harmful to newborns.

It's correct to say that if you compare the science to the medical advice, the effects of "secondary smoking" begin to look borderline imaginary, but here's the thing - there are certainly poisons in it, and there are certainly carcinogens. In an enclosed space, those are going in your kids lungs and on their skin, and a sane thing to do is to avoid the fuck out of that. It's fair to say we all grew up around it, but we live in an age where for whatever reason cancer is enormously widespread, so "never did me any harm" has completely lost its credibility. In my opinion.

Yes, it's as bad as they say. Take that from a scientist. It's implicated in cot death, and a million other bad things.

Here's a bit of data for him. He needs to understand that this isn't opinion, or bullshit, it's peer reviewed data from large studies.

www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/health_effects/

Not only is second hand smoke bad, third hand smoke is bad. Cats who live in smoking houses for example, have higher rates of leukaemia because they live the deposits from their fur while they clean.

He needs to smoke outdoors and at a minimum change his top and wash his hands thoroughly when he comes in. He should not be handling a baby in clothes he smokes in.

Can he not switch to vaping or e cigs ? Sorry to be harsh but he sounds staggeringly selfish. This isn't a little bad habit that has no impact on those around you, it's a killer.

They lick the deposits from fur, sorry. Bloody iPad.