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about Passive (Involuntary) Smoking
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Nonsmoking children who live in homes with smokers are involuntarily exposed to cigarette smoke. This situation is called "passive smoking."

The smoke comes from two sources: secondhand smoke and sidestream smoke.

Secondhand smoke is the smoke exhaled by the smoker. Sidestream smoke is the smoke that rises off the end of a burning cigarette. Most of the smoke in a room is sidestream smoke. Sidestream smoke contains two or three times more harmful chemicals than secondhand smoke because it does not pass through the cigarette filter. At its worst, a child in a very smoky room for one hour with several smokers inhales as many bad chemicals as he would by actually smoking 10 or more cigarettes.

Children who are breast-fed by a smoking mother are at the greatest risk because chemicals from the smoke are in the breast milk as well as the surrounding air.