While past research has found that family pets may protect infants from developing allergies, new research from the Medical College of Georgia finds that children of parents who smoke are more likely to develop allergies, regardless of whether pets are in the home.
For the study, researchers examined the home environment and allergy histories of 474 Detroit-area children up to seven years old. They found that in non-smoking homes with pets, children were 50-percent less likely to develop allergies compared to homes without pets.
However, in homes where parents smoked, the researchers found that the presence of cats or dogs in the home “did not significantly alter the risk” of a child developing allergies. Inflammation in the airways caused by the particles and chemicals in cigarette smoke may be just as bad and block the effects, whatever they are, of being exposed to the dog or the cat.
Being exposed to smoke greatly increases the amount of trouble a child will have with their asthma. And being exposed to cigarette smoke also increases the risk that a child will have recurrent ear infections, and pneumonia severe enough to require admission to a hospital.
There are a whole host of bad effects of secondhand cigarette smoke. – Allergy