SECONDHAND SMOKE DISRUPTS ASTHMATIC KIDS' SLEEP

CHILDREN WITH ASTHMA HAVE NIGHTTIME
BREATHING PROBLEMS IF LIVING WITH SMOKER

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Researchers found that of more than 200 6- to 12-year-olds with asthma, those exposed to secondhand smoke tended to have poorer sleep at night and more drowsiness during the day. Parents already have many reasons not to smoke, particularly if their children have asthma. These latest findings offer more incentive, according to lead researcher Dr. Kimberly Yolton, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio. “Children with asthma are especially vulnerable to the effects of tobacco smoke exposure,” said Yolton, whose findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics. Parents were interviewed about their children's sleep habits, asthma severity and exposure to secondhand smoke at home. The researchers also took blood samples from the children to measure levels of cotinine - a byproduct of nicotine that serves as a marker of exposure to tobacco smoke.

Yolton's team found that, surprisingly, nearly all of the children in the study - 93 percent - had relatively “clinically relevant” sleep disorders. That included more difficulty falling asleep, more nighttime breathing symptoms and more so-called parasomnias - problems such as sleepwalking, nightmares and night “terrors.” This is “just one more reason that parents should refrain from smoking around their children with asthma,” Dr Yolton said. Along with the effects of tobacco smoke on children's airways, there is also a possible role for nicotine - a known stimulant that may affect sleep patterns. Yolton pointed out that childhood sleep disturbances can have significant consequences, including attention and behavior problems, and poorer school performance. So it is “highly likely,” she said, that secondhand smoke indirectly feeds these problems in some children with asthma.


Children should receive the proper care and attention from their parents who should ensure their physical and spiritual development. However, in this era of individualism, adults want to satisfy their tastes and vices without regard to their own children, who often are damaged by their selfish actions.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

In the glorious days, or before the advent of the age of Kali, the brāhmaṇas, the cows, the women, the children and the old men were properly given protection. ... The protection of children gives the human form of life its best chance to prepare the way of liberty from material bondage. Such protection of children begins from the very day of begetting a child by the purificatory process of garbhādhāna-samskāra, the beginning of pure life. ... In the age of Kali they are not properly protected, and therefore the duration of life of the present generation has shortened considerably.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam”
Purport in Canto 1 - Chapter 8 - Verse 5.