Exposure to secondhand smoke or passive smoking can put children at higher risks of developing invasive meningococcal disease, a new study says.
Apart from that, researchers from the University of Nottingham also found similar risks among children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy.
Meningococcal disease is a severe type of bacterial infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitides. The bacterium is associated with a wide range of diseases like bacterial meningitis, sepsis and focal diseases (pneumonia and arthritis) in the United States.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the contagious disease is spread through "droplets of respiratory or throat secretions from carriers" and leads to severe brain damage or death.
To analyze the link between passive smoking and meningococcal disease in children, researchers Dr. Rachael Murray and Dr. Jo Leonardi-Bee reviewed 18 studies. Children below five exposed to secondhand smoking at home were found at double risks of developing the disease. Exposure to nicotine while in the mother's womb was found to escalate the risks of getting the disease by three times.
"We estimate that an extra 630 cases of childhood invasive meningococcal disease every year are directly attributable to second hand smoke in the UK alone. While we cannot be sure exactly how tobacco smoke is affecting these children, the findings from this study highlight consistent evidence of the further harms of smoking around children and during pregnancy, and thus parents and family members should be encouraged to not smoke in the home or around children," Dr. Murray said in a news release.
The findings of the study have been published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Public Health.
According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, nearly 26 percent of American adults are smokers, and between 50 and 67 percent of children below five years live with at least one smoker. The smoke produced from cigarettes can stay in the air for more than two hours. Secondhand smoke contains more than 4,000 toxic chemicals and breathing smoke-filled air brings in many health concerns and leads to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), asthma, meningitis, cough, cold and middle ear diseases and even cancer.
Smoking during pregnancy brings many health problems for the child. Premature birth, low birth weight, cot death, asthma, infections, still birth and autism are some of the risks. However, nearly 14 percent of women in the country continue smoking, even after the confirmation of pregnancy.
