Thirdhand smoke is residue that remains on the clothes, skin and furniture of smokers, even if they do their smoking out of the house. It was found that it impacts children's breathing. . Edward Dompeling, MD, professor of pediatric lung diseases at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands said that tThe risk of respiratory infections in kids from infancy to 13 years of age more than doubled in families where parents smoked cigarettes but claimed to smoke only outside. Dompeling with his peers reported at the annual meeting of the European Respiratory Society that the number of cases with wheezing has doubled in families where thirdhand smoke was reported, They also found more cases of children who ever wheezed and asthma in these homes, but those increases did not reach statistical significance. The findings show that measures aimed at preventing secondhand smoke exposure in kids may also include additional strategies and education to prevent thirdhand smoke exposure in kids, The information about thirdhand smoke came in the form of responses to questionnaires in which parents addressed 91 items, including environmental tobacco exposure among children, smoking behavior and the respiratory health of the child. In the survey participated 10,000 families in the South-Limburg area of the Netherlands, and 1,899 families responded. Dompeling said also that there may have been some form of selection bias that could have influenced his findings. The low response level and parental under-reporting of smoking cigarettes may also have influenced the results. He precised that 68% of the respondents were from highly educated families, and about 56% of their children were 6 years of age or younger; 54% were boys.
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