CHILDREN whose parents smoke end up requiring medical attention more frequently, according to research.

A large-scale study found those exposed to cigarette fumes in the home spent much longer in hospital or visiting the family GP.

Surgeries and paediatric emergency departments need warnings about “the dangers of smoking around children” to increase awareness among parents, say scientists.

They looked at patterns of health care utilisation among US children ranging from newborns to those aged 17 living with smokers compared with those who did not.

Almost one in four (24 per cent) of the 95,677 children in the study lived with smokers and one in 20 lived with someone who smokes at home. 

The children who lived with a smoker or who had exposure to tobacco smoke inside the home were significantly more likely to have had any medical care visit, including sick care.

Researchers said they were also considerably less likely to have had any dental care visits, showing children of smoking parents are taken to the dentist less often.

Professor Ashley Merianos, of the University of Cincinnati, said several previous studies had established tobacco smoke causes ill health in children including respiratory problems, increased infections and asthma flare ups.

But there had been little research into whether it translates into more frequent paediatric health care visits.

Prof Merianos said: “Our findings indicate tobacco smoke exposure has a significant impact on demand for health care services.

“Settings with a high volume of children exposed to tobacco smoke at home, including paediatric emergency departments, could serve as effective outlets for health messages to inform caregivers about the dangers of smoking around children  and help decrease these potentially preventable tobacco smoke exposure-related visits and costs.”

Her researchers analysed 2011 to 2012 data from the National Survey on Children’s Health, which is conducted by the US Centres for Disease and Control Prevention’s National Centre for Health Statistics.

Last year Adam Goldstein, a professor in family medicine, said repeated exposure of children to secondhand smoke is child abuse, likening it to leaving them unattended in a hot car, or drink driving.

He said he was forced to speak out after caring for “too many children hospitalised with asthma and pneumonia, caused in large part to their repeated exposure to secondhand smoke.”

Prof Goldstein, who is director of the tobacco intervention programs at the University of North Carolina, said the damage from smoke is “as abusive as many other commonly accepted physical and emotional traumas of children.”

Prof Merianos presented the findings at the Paediatric Academic Societies 2016 meeting in Baltimore.