Santa Claus Cigarette Ad Blast From the Past

Given the holidays, take a look at this cigarette ad from the past... Times truly have changed (for the better)!

Smoker's Kids Have More Ear Infections

Although not entirely new news... a new review paper which collated the results of 61 past studies has reaffirmed that smoking around kids increases their risk of ear infections dramatically.

Just how much?

Kids living with a smoker had a:

• 37 percent higher risk of ear infections and hearing problems
• 62 percent higher risk of ear problems if the household smoker was their mom
• 86 percent more likely to undergo ear surgery than kids without secondhand smoke exposure

Read a MSNBC story on this here.

So don't smoke for your own health as well as your kids' health!!!

Reference:
Parental Smoking and the Risk of Middle Ear Disease in Children. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. Published online September 5, 2011. doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.158

Smoking is Highly Addictive in Kids (Teens and Babies) [video]

All it takes is one cigarette a month.

A recent study in Pediatrics that tracked the course of addiction to smoking among a group of sixth-graders found that smoking only one cigarette a month was all it took to become dependent.

In the study titled "Early Course of Nicotine Dependence in Adolescent Smokers," the researchers found that one cigarette a month or one cigarette a week was enough to keep addiction satisfied, but as time goes by, the child has to smoke cigarettes more and more frequently. So people may be addicted for more than a year before they feel the need to smoke a cigarette every day.

Read a NPR story on this research here.

Apparently, this may be true not only for tweens, but even infants... Here is a YouTube video of a 2 year old baby who has become addicted and is now a chain-smoker.