The long-term effects of parental smoking

Parents who used to smoke, but quit before conceiving, may still put their child’s heath at risk. Researchers of the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco, have studied dust in homes where children were diagnosed with leukemia and found an increased level of tobacco particles in the carpeting. UCSF Associate Researcher Adam de Smith explains the connection. “If a family is smoking relatively heavily, they might not even be smoking in the house, they might be smoking outside, but when they come into the home, particles drop onto the carpet. If they have children several years later, we have found that those particles can remain there several years later. So it is possible if a child is playing around on the carpet, he may still be exposed to toxic particles that could perhaps increase the leukemia risk." Studies show that even if you don’t smoke inside the house and frequently vacuum, only about 10 percent of dust gets removed. So de Smith says, best way to protect your children from tobacco-contaminated dust exposure is to never start smoking.