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Show Smoking harms By DR. RODNEY A. POLLARY, M.D. Children coming to the office are now experiencing many types of respiratory illnesses. Coughs, wheezing, congestion, fever and weakness are the symptoms. Some are having a significant amount of breathing difficulty and have required re-quired hospitalization. Some are being helped with antibiotics, anti-biotics, but most of these infections infec-tions are due to a group of viruses that come during this time of year and antibiotics are of little value. Because these illnesses are so frustrating and last so long, parents are coming back to the doctor's office asking for additional help. Parents are upset wondering why their pediatrician can't get their children better. Sometimes the children have been sick for several weeks and parents have spent many hours at home caretaking, many dollars on medications and many visits to the doctor. This makes parents angry and want answers. Sometimes the answers aren't what they want to hear. Some of these chronically ill children are being made worse by the parent's smoking. Many studies have been done and more are being done to convince con-vince everyone that smoking is harmful. Parents have the attitude that it is my life and my right to smoke. One statement that I feel fits this attitude is that sure, it's okay to smoke, just don't exhale! Evidence is now available that shows that inhaling parents' smoke does affect the health. Several studies stu-dies have demonstrated that infants in-fants that are exposed to parents' smoke are hospitalized 20 to 40 percent more often for respiratory illnesses than a comparable group of nonsmoking families. |