Passive smokers are exposed to a quantitatively smaller & qualitatively different smoke exposure than active smokers. A relatively large body of data relates parental cigarette smoking to the occurrence of both acute respiratory illness & chronic
respiratory symptoms in children.
We have studied the relationship between family members smoking habits & respiratory disease, in 7yr toi 13yr-old, nonselected 444 school children.
We checked the urine cotinine levels, urine nicotine metabolite, for the assessment of passive smoke intake. The mean urinary cotinine concentration for the children of smoking family was 5.54±2.85μmol/L, and for the children of non-smoking
family was
5.03±2.6μmol/L without any difference in statistical menas.
Passive smoking did not affect the frequency of respiratory illness, However, wheezing episodes were increased in children who have a smoker in the family members(P<0.01).
We conclude that passive smoking could increase the wheezing episodes in children.
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