Recent research has shown that cigarette smoke still gets to your loved once even if you choose to go outside to smoke or only smoke when you are not with them. Even if you go outside of your home to smoke or smoke when your spouse, children or parent are not around you, the smoke toxins still get to them in what is now referred to as third hand tobacco smoke.
Contamination from cigarette smoke still lingers after you extinguish cigarettes. This has been coined as third-hand smoke and it is as dangerous as second-hand smoke. This research was undertaken to get rid of the existing attitudes in most adult smokers that their smoking has absolutely no effect on their (expectant) spouses and children.
Anytime you smoke, the intoxicate matter in the smoke from tobacco finds its way into your clothing and hair. This is regardless of whether you smoke in the presence of your family or not. This means that when you get into close contact with your expectant wife or small baby, you expose them to these toxins. If you are breastfeeding, the toxins will still find their way to your baby through your breast milk.
The matter in tobacco smoke is very toxic. It contains poisonous metals, chemical and gases including ammonia, butane, hydrogen cyanide, polonium, cadmium, chromium, arsenic and lead. Most of these compounds are carcinogens which are very dangerous.
Babies and small children are the most susceptible to exposure to third hand tobacco smoke. They play on, crawl, lick, touch and inhale near the surfaces which are contaminated by this smoke. The fact that this smoke can remain intact for many hours even after the cigarette has been put off makes matters worse.
Such exposure usually leads to defective cognition in children. More exposure further reduces the reading score of these children. Even very low levels of such harmful compounds are very neurotoxic in those areas where children can be found.
The main aim of carrying out this research was to discover if it would have any effect on getting people to smoke less inside and around homes or to quit smoking altogether. Luckily, the response bordered on the positive and many on the interviewees decided to quit smoking when they discovered that it had such magnanimous health consequences on their families.
In conclusion, this research went a long way in giving many chain-smokers yet another reason to quit smoking. It also has a number of possible future consequences. It may, for example, lead to bans against smoking in homes. This information about third hand smoke may also get incorporated into the currently clinical practices, programs and campaigns against tobacco and smoking.
Therefore, if you are a smoker, the time to quit is now. If you truly value the lives, well being, health, safety and future of those you love, quit smoking. This will reduce the exposure to third hand tobacco smoke that you have previously subjected your children and spouses (when they were expectant) to.