Category Archives: Parenting

You don’t smoke and you stay away from people who are smoking, thereby avoiding both firsthand and secondhand smoke. You should be 100% smoke-free, right? Wrong, according to a new study by researchers at California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory which indicates the dangers of thirdhand smoke. Thirdhand smoke actually isn’t airborne, gaseous smoke at all, but rather the residue that’s left on clothing, room surfaces and dust after the visible smoke is long gone from the room.

Colds, coughs and sniffles are common at this time of year, and if your child has caught a cold, odds are decent that you gave her some type of cold medication to alleviate the symptoms. In fact, a new study by C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital shows that 44% of parents have given their children under 4 years of age a multi-symptom cold or cough medicine. Another 42% admitted to giving their children cough medicine, while 25% gave decongestants. So, what’s wrong with this picture?. Studies dating back to the 1990s proved that over-the-counter cold and cough medicines are ineffective for young children. Studies conducted in the last decade have gone even farther, finding that cold and cough medications may actually be dangerous for youngsters, causing symptoms that could be much worse than a simple cough.