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 The results, from 24 studies including nearly 88,000 kids, may
create a "teachable moment" for parents to consider quitting
smoking, the authors write in the Journal of Epidemiology &
Community Health.
"Some parents might think that snoring in kids is benign or even
cute, but snoring is often the first step towards developing sleep
apnea and has been linked to high blood pressure, stroke and heart
disease," said Lucy Popova, a researcher at Georgia State University
in Atlanta who wasn't involved in the study.
"Furthermore, parental smoking and secondhand smoke in children
causes multiple other problems - respiratory and ear infections,
asthma, SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), and behavioral
problems, such as ADHD," Popova said in an email.
The younger the child, the more vulnerable she or he is - and
prenatal exposure to tobacco smoke, when the body is just developing
in the womb, is particularly harmful, she added.
The authors, led by Ke Sun of the School of Public Health of Qingdao
University in China, combined and reanalyzed data from previous
studies in a wide range of countries that had compared exposure to
tobacco smoke and the risk of habitual snoring in children.
They found that exposure to smoke before and after birth raised a
child's odds of habitual snoring compared to unexposed kids.
Children exposed to smoke while their mothers were pregnant were
almost twice as likely to be habitual snorers.
After birth, children whose mothers smoked were 87 percent more
likely to snore than unexposed kids. Other exposures to smoke in the
home, including fathers who smoked, raised the risk by 45 percent.
The study team also found that a child's snoring risk increased in
proportion to their amount of smoke exposure, and calculated that
the risk rose by about 2 percent for every cigarette smoked daily in
the home.
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The researchers did not respond to a request for comments, but they
note in their report that their study doesn't examine how smoke may
make a child more vulnerable to snoring. The analysis is also
limited by differences among the included studies and difficulty
teasing apart the roles of a mother's smoking during pregnancy and
afterward.
While prenatal exposure to tobacco smoke is likely to be linked to
heavier environmental exposure after the child is born, the study
took that into account, and the results for each type of exposure
are independent of one another, Popova said.
"Quitting smoking is one of the best things a parent can do for his
or her health, and for the health of their children," said Dr.
Sophie Balk, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital at Montefiore in
New York who wasn't involved in the analysis.
"People who smoke should talk to their own doctors, or their child's
doctor, about how to quit," she said in an email. "Medications -
such as nicotine replacement therapies - are available to help with
the quit-smoking process."
In the U.S., every state has its own quit-smoking telephone line
(1-800-QUIT-NOW or 1-800-784-8669) staffed with counselors trained
to help smokers quit, Balk said.
"If your child goes to daycare, make sure that your child care
provider does not smoke," she added. If a smoker can't quit right
now, it's important to never to smoke in the home or car, or to
allow visitors to the home to smoke.
"If smokers smoke outside, they should change clothes and wash hands
before being with children. But quitting tobacco use entirely is the
best way to preserve your own health and the health of your
children," she said.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2u56jaO Journal of Epidemiology & Community
Health, online June 15, 2018.
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