Tobacco smoke gives children pain in the ear
Parents who smoke at home and have young children now have another reason, aside from their own health, to butt out: ear infections. A new study conclusively links tobacco smoke and middle-ear infections in pre-school-age children, showing that children who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home during the first three years of life are at almost double the risk for recurrent or persistent middle-ear infections than children who are not.
The study, published in the February 1998 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the oldest pediatric journal in the U.S., was conducted at the University of Calgary by Carol Adair and Dr. Reginald Sauve. While it is not the first scientific study to draw a link between tobacco smoke and middle-ear disease in children, it is being touted by the American Medical Association as the study that ends the controversy over whether that link really exists.
The researchers studied 625 Grade 1 students in 36 Calgary schools to determine the association between environmental tobacco smoke and middle-ear infections in pre-school-age children. They found a history of middle-ear infections in 23.9 per cent of the children studied.
Children who lived in a household with two or more smokers during the first three years of life had an 85-per-cent-higher risk of having a history of recurrent or persistent middle-ear infections.
Children who lived in homes where 10 or more cigarettes were smoked by the mother per day were at a 68-per-cent-higher risk of middle-ear infections.
In homes where 10 or more cigarettes per day were smoked in total by all household smokers, children were at a 40-per-cent-higher risk.
The evidence of the association between the exposure to tobacco smoke and a history of middle-ear infections was clear in the results of the study. The study concluded that “environmental tobacco smoke is an important risk factor for middle-ear disease in urban pre-school-age children, even in a relatively affluent population.”
The researchers took into account the fact that ear infections are a normal childhood illness, realizing that most children would have one or two ear infections before the age of six.
For Dr. William James, a child specialist in Ottawa, the study is welcome news.
“It basically substantiates what a lot of pediatricians have felt for years, but we didn’t have the numbers to prove it,” Dr. James said. He said he has been telling people not to smoke around their children for years, knowing that exposure to tobacco smoke increases the risk of respiratory tract infections, which can lead to ear infections and other health problems in children.
Environmental tobacco smoke is considered the most common indoor contaminant for young children. Since the early 1990s, passive smoke exposure has been linked to numerous health problems in young children, including middle-ear infections, which are one of the leading causes of childhood illness. Middle ear infections are the most common reason for North American children to visit the doctor.
Dr. James said medications for prevention of ear infections have reduced surgery needed to treat ear infections during the past five years, but the ear infections are still the most common reason antibiotics are given to young children in Canada.
Since they cause fluctuating hearing loss, ear infections may put young children at risk for developmental problems in language and cognition and motor skills.
The study done at the University of Calgary was Ms. Adair’s doctoral dissertation.
“What the study was, was really a rigorous confirmation of previous information,” she said.
“There had been studies as early as 1993 that were just very weak in method, and some of them showed an association and some of them didn’t.”
Ms. Adair said that while tobacco smoke is not the only cause of middle-ear infections in children, it is a preventable one. She said parents who smoke should realize that by smoking outdoors, they can have a smoke-free house despite the fact that they smoke.
She said that smoking in a car with young children or while breast-feeding produces very high smoke exposure for children and should be avoided. Parents should also consider choosing smoke-free day care and restaurants.
“Parents already strap their children into car seats, they take injury hazards out of the home, they have them wear bicycle helmets, they have them immunized. Controlling their smoke exposure is just a natural extension of those sort of health protection measures,” Ms. Adair said.
Incoming search :
- children (88)
- children photos (4)
- pain children (3)
- children photo (2)
- a recent study form the university of calgary canada has linked passive smoking to the middle ear infection in children (1)
- pain play kids school (1)
- Pain in the ear (1)
- pain in children (1)
- infected eyes of child around cigarette smoke (1)
- ear pain around cigarette smoke (1)
- ear pain (1)
- ear for kids (1)
- common infection in school age children (1)
- children with parents who smoke (1)
- baby ear pain (1)
- smoking links children ears (1)
