Living with a smoker hard on tiny infants
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Infants born at very low birth weights are at increased risk of lung ailments in the first 12 months of life, and a new study suggests that modifiable indoor respiratory triggers, namely exposure to cigarette smoke and pests in the home, may be at least partly to blame.
In a study of 124 very low birth weight infants, Dr. Jill S. Halterman from University of Rochester, New York and colleagues analyzed the impact of modifiable exposures on respiratory illness 1 year after discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit.
“In this study, we found that respiratory illnesses were very common among very low birth weight infants in their first year of life,” Halterman noted in comments to Reuters Health. “In fact, almost 1 in 10 infants had already been diagnosed with asthma at this very young age.”
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