Smoking shisha in front of your kids? You’re killing them

Despite the government’s crackdown on shisha cafés in residential areas, heath experts continue to urge parents to put down the pipes before they cause serious health problems for their children. In extreme cases, even causing premature death.

With many shisha cafés still towing the line, witnesses have come forward with tales of children being brought into enclosed venues and being exposed to this dangerous ‘second hand’ smoke.

Dr Sreekumar Sreedharan, specialist physician, Aster Union Medical Centre, Karama, told Emirates 24|7 that fatal sleep accidents were the tragic result of such negligence.

He explained: “Passive smoking is a cause of sudden unexpected death in infants (SUDI), which includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and fatal sleep accidents.

“A child who lives in a smoking household for the first 18 months of his/her life has an increased risk of developing a range of respiratory illnesses including bronchitis, bronchiolitis and pneumonia.

“Such children are also more prone to getting colds, coughs and glue ear (middle ear infections). Their lungs show a reduced ability to function and slower growth,” said Dr Sreekumar.

According to studies, a child exposed to second-hand smoke at home is more likely to develop asthma symptoms, have more asthma attacks and use asthma medications more often and for a longer period.

Meanwhile, school-aged children of people who smoke are more likely to have symptoms such as cough, phlegm, wheeze and breathlessness.

Dr Sreekumar added that children of people who smoke have an increased risk of meningococcal disease, which can sometimes cause death or disability.

Anti-tobacco law

The UAE’s Ministry of Health announced the executive regulations of the anti-tobacco federal law on Tuesday, as a part of the government’s efforts to develop an effective national anti-tobacco strategy to protect public health.

Besides banning smoking in vehicles with children, the law also targets shisha cafés, which will have to be at least 150 metres away from residential areas.

The regulations also specify that working hours for such cafés will be from 10am until midnight.

Shishas will not be served to customers younger than 18 years of age, and the cafés will be forbidden from delivering shishas to apartments.

Earlier, the Dubai Municipality had notified local shisha cafés that children and pregnant women should not be allowed on the premises or offered the pipe to smoke.

However, not every café has followed the letter of the law.

Murtaza Qureshi, a Bur Dubai resident, spoke of one such incident earlier this month. “I was at a popular shisha café in a Bur Dubai mall one Saturday evening, when a family walked in with a small child in a wheelchair.

“They rolled his wheelchair right next to my shisha, without a care that they were exposing their son to smoke.”

Qureshi said that he finally moved his own seat a few tables away, only to find another infant being wheeled in, in a pram a few minutes later, close to his table.

“I finally just paid my bill and walked out, but not before speaking to the manager in front of the parents,” he said.

Dangers of passive smoking

Secondhand smoke (also called environmental tobacco smoke, involuntary smoke, and passive smoke) is the smoke given off by burning tobacco and smoke exhaled by a smoker.

At least 69 chemicals in secondhand smoke are known to cause cancer.

Dr Sreekumar said secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in non-smokers, adding: “There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.”

Dr Sreekumar said SIDS resulted in about 22,000 deaths as of 2010 globally, according to a World Health Organisation report that linked SIDS to passive smoking.

He said: “There are at least 50 studies to prove this relationship due to prenatal exposure to smoking, shisha or otherwise. Similarly, there are studies to prove the association with smoking by mother and father after birth (post natal exposure). Children born to smoking mothers have lower lung volumes, increased airway resistance, lower lung compliance.”

Specifying the dangers of shisha smoking, especially by pregnant women, the doctor continued: “Water pipe smoking delivers the addictive drug nicotine and is at least as toxic as cigarette smoke, and some users of hookah report being dependent on hookah and having difficulty quitting.

“The tobacco in hookahs is combusted (exposed to high heat). Due to the mode of smoking – including frequency of puffing, depth of inhalation, and length of the smoking session – hookah smokers may absorb higher concentrations of the toxins found in cigarette smoke.”

He explained that a typical one-hour-long hookah smoking session involves 200 puffs, while an average cigarette is 20 puffs.

The volume of smoke inhaled during a typical hookah session is about 90,000 millilitres (ml), compared with 500-600 ml inhaled when smoking a cigarette.

Hookah smokers are at risk of the same kinds of diseases caused by cigarette smoking including cancers of the mouth, lung, stomach and esophagus, reduced lung function and decreased fertility.

Dr Sreekumar appealed to parents, saying: “As children always consider their parents as role models, it is up to the parent to decide, whether they really want their child to be a smoker.

“Some parents say they don’t smoke at home. But there is something called third hand smoke, where smoke particles cling to the clothing of the person who smokes and produce delayed effects in those who have close contact with him later.

“Good practices always start at home. If you are a parent and a smoker, it is high time you quit smoking,” the doctor added.

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