Secondhand smoke, also know as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects in children, including SIDS (Sudden Death Infant Syndrome), cancer, respiratory infections, ear infection and asthma.

Children’s exposure to secondhand smoke around the world may be much Million.Around one-third of smokers - million people continue to smoke near children.Smoking by parents is the principal determinant of children’s exposure to secondhand smoke.

Many children under the age of five are admitted to hospital every year with illnesses resulting possible from passive smoking.

A poll for SmokeFree found that only 3% of parents knew that cot death could result from passive smoking and only 1% identified glue ear as an outcome. Children have the right to be protected from passive smoking.Parents must recognise that passive smoking causes ill-health in children and that they have a responsibility not to inflict harm on their children.

As knowledge of the impact of passive smoking increases, so demand for smoke-free environments rises. When smoke-free public places are the norm, there is a greater public acceptance of the need to restrict smoking in the home.

Governments have a duty to inform the public of the hazards of breathing in other people’s tobacco smoke and adults should act on that advice to protect the health of children. Smoking bans in workplaces do not cause displacement smoking in the home.