Though you might not think about it, smoking can be an important factor in deciding who gets custody of a
minor child when the courts make the decision based on "the best interests of the child," which is the standard
used in deciding which parent should get custody in a divorce or when unmarried parents are arguing over
custody.

        At least some Tennessee judges have begun to consider smoking as a factor in deciding child custody, and
Tennessee's Court of Appeals recently decided trial court judges can deny divorced parents all visitation rights
with their children if the parent has smoked tobacco around the children.  Any parent who ignores this trend
regarding exposing to second hand smoke is asking for trouble.  The case is Smith v. Smith, 21 TAM 46-21,
decided October 11, 1996.

        If one parent is clearly better for the children than the other, EXCEPT that the better parent smokes, very
few judges are going to decide child custody because of smoking.  But the courts are required by law to decide
child custody questions on the basis of what is best for the child... and smoking can be a very serious factor.

        So even if you aren't concerned about your own health, and don't personally care about the risk you may be
creating for your child... if it's possible you'll ever get divorced and will want custody of your children, you might
want to start trying to stop smoking now.

        One local expert witness I have used has called it child abuse to expose a child to second-hand smoke, and
he makes a pretty effective case for it.  There are several reasons for his position.

        In the July 1997 issue of Archives if Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine a study concluded that at least 6,200
children in the US die each year as result of parental smoking, more children die from parental smoking that from
all other unintentional injuries combined; 5.4 million more kids a year survive lesser health problems such as
asthma attacks and inner ear infections, with such health problems costing $4.6 BILLION a year to treat --2K of
the deaths attributed to increased SIDS from 2nd hand smoke

        Second-hand smoke, also called passive smoking or environmental smoke or side- stream smoke, is a serious
danger to the health of minor children.  Exposure to second- hand smoke puts children at risk of a wide variety of
respiratory, cardio-vascular, and inner ear problems.  Many health experts go so far as to call children's exposure
to second hand smoke "child abuse."

        It also makes no difference whether those smoking in the home smoke only in rooms away from a child or
when the child is not indoors.  Any smoking in the home will result in the same risk of harm to the child.  The only
relevant factors are the amount of smoking and the number of hours the child is in the home and exposed to the
smoke.

        There is no longer any room for scientific doubt that tobacco smoke contains a wide range of both toxic and
carcinogenic chemicals, seriously harmful to humans.  These toxic and carcinogenic chemicals are often stronger
in the second-hand smoke from the unfiltered end of a cigarette than they are as inhaled by the smoker,
sometimes drawn through a filter and always drawn through the length of the unburned cigarette, which itself
serves to filter many of the toxic and carcinogenic chemicals inhaled by the smoker.

        While it is impossible in any particular case to predict with certainty that any harm will result from
second-hand smoke, there is no longer any doubt that exposure does increase the risk of harm.

        The types of injury resulting from second-hand smoke include each of the following:

                  1) 2.4 percent of children never exposed to tobacco smoke in the home are in fair health to
          poor health, while that rate is much higher (roughly 70% higher) in households with current smokers
          where 4.1 percent of the children are in fair to poor health.
                  2) severe aggravation of allergies in children.
                  3) a more than doubling of the number of asthma attacks in children with asthma, as well as an
          increase in the severity of the attacks and a lengthening of the attacks; aggravating between
          400,000 and to one million existing cases of childhood asthma each year; asthma is the most common
          chronic disease in children and is the leading cause of days lost from school, causing nationwide 10
          million missed days a school a year; asthma afflicted 4.3 percent of the nation's population under the
          age of 18 in 1988; asthma increases the likelihood of an emergency room visit by 63 percent
          compared to children without asthma; asthma can be fatal in children and is more likely to be a
          problem in male children than in female children.
                  4) accounting for a quarter of all new cases of childhood asthma; including creating 8,000 to
          26,000 cases of childhood asthma each year in children who would not otherwise be asthmatic.
                  5) an increase in the incidence of common cold.
                  6) an increased likelihood of inner ear infections.
                  7) 38 percent of all middle ear effusion, a leading source of childhood surgery, are attributable
          to second-hand smoke.
                  8) each year there are 3,000 lung cancer deaths attributable to second-hand smoke.
                  9) second hand smoke causes an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 cardiovascular disease related
          deaths a year.
                  10) increases the risk of pneumonia.
                  11) increases the risk of bronchitis.
                  12) reduces lung function.
                  13) coughing and wheezing and sputum production in adolescents increase 30 to 50 percent
          when exposed to second-hand smoke.
                  14) children less than five years old are at twice the risk of having acute upper respiratory tract
          infections if exposed to second hand smoking.
                  15) an excess prevalence of 30 to 80 percent of chronic respiratory disease symptoms in
          children of all ages when a custodial parent smokes.
                  16) increasing the likelihood of tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies by from one third to two
          thirds.
                  17) studies have found increasing the number of cigarettes smoked by mothers by five per day
          resulted in an annual increase in the incidents of lower respiratory illness from an average of 2.5 to an
          average of 3.5 in children after the increased tobacco smoking.
                  18) the effects of second hand smoking are cumulative, the longer and greater the exposure,
          the greater the risk of harm from that exposure.
                  19) without a doubt children are at greater risk of injury from exposure to second hand smoke
          than adults.
                  20) a significantly greater risk of developing childhood lung cancer.
                  21) the Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory board has recommended that
          second-hand smoke be classified as a Class A (known human) carcinogen.
                  22) tobacco smoke contains more than 4,700 chemical compounds, including carbon monoxide,
          nicotine, sulfur dioxide, ammonia, vinyl chloride, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, benzene and arsenic
          -- many of these being chemical compounds which are treated as hazardous if emitted in outdoor air
          by toxic waste dumps and chemical dumps.
                  23) forty three chemical compounds in tobacco smoke are known to cause cancer, and some of
          the chemical compounds are also mutagenic, causing permanent and often harmful changes in the
          genetic matter in human cells.
                  24) even for adults, the health risk from indoor tobacco smoke could be twice as great as the
          health risks from radon.
                  25) one study has found that children of smokers scored lower on tests of reasoning ability and
          vocabulary than children of non-smokers.
                  26) some studies indicate second hand tobacco smoke reduces oxygen to the brain and could
          impair thinking.
                  27) low grade ear infections and respiratory problems which are not serious enough to keep a
          child out of school may still make it more difficult for the child to concentrate on classroom lessons.
                  28) children are 50% to 100% more likely to smoke or chew tobacco if raised in a household
          where a parent does.
                  29) An Environmental Protection Agency report, issued in January, 1993, states secondhand
          tobacco smoke causes 3,000 deaths per year and is responsible for 20 percent of all lung cancer
          cases.
                  30) Infants in homes with at least one person smoking are at significantly greater risk of falling
          victim to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) -- the rate is at least 100% higher than in homes
          with no smokers.

        Children are far more at risk from health problems resulting from second-hand smoking than are adults.  This
is for a variety of reasons, including that children inhale more frequently than adults thereby breathing in more of
the toxic chemicals; that the child's body is still growing; that the harm from exposure to smoke in a young child is
greater simply by virtue of their longer life expectancy and the fact that the carcinogenic effect may take years
to develop; that each breath of second-hand smoke brings in more toxic chemicals per unit of body weight than
adults; that the inner ear and heart and the lungs of a child are more delicate than those of adults.

Click here to e-mail questions, suggestions or corrections regarding this page.

                                             Disclosure on Non-Representation Link
                                             Disclosures on Certification of Specialization Link