The dangers of vaping around babies & kids – Is it safe to vape around children?

The Risks of Vaping Around Newborns and Children

Vaping around children exposes them to toxic chemicals found in e-cigarette aerosol, many of which are known to harm developing lungs and organs. Babies and young children are especially vulnerable due to their lower body weight and immature immune systems. Even occasional indoor vaping can contaminate their environment and increase the risk of accidental nicotine poisoning.

Existing Health Problems

For children with asthma, emphysema, or other chronic respiratory conditions, secondhand vape exposure can make symptoms worse. The aerosol contains ultrafine particles that penetrate deep into the lungs, triggering inflammation and constricting airways.

Even healthy children may develop respiratory sensitivities from regular exposure. The chemicals exhaled can irritate the airways, increase coughing and wheezing, and make them more vulnerable to future illnesses.

Side effects of second or third hand vaping on babies and kids

• Poison – Nicotine vaping liquid can be poisonous within a few minutes of contact to an adult’s skin. To a child it can be deadly. In 2014 a 1 year-old child died from liquid nicotine poisoning in US¹¹
• Asthma & emphysema – these can be exacerbated by the ultrafine particles exhaled by vapers^{3, 4}
• Eye, nose and throat irritation – Volatile Organic Compounds created by heating the vaping liquid and exhaled can led to this¹²
• Headaches and nausea – Volatile Organic Compounds created by heating the vaping liquid are exhaled and can lead to this¹²
• Liver, kidney and nervous system – Volatile Organic Compounds created by heating the vaping liquid are exhaled and can lead to this¹²
• Cancer causing toxins – These include Acetaldehyde (MS), Benzene (SS), Cadmium (MS), Formaldehyde (MS,SS), Isoprene (SS), Lead (MS), Nickel (MS), Nicotine (MS, SS), N- Nitrosonornicotine (MS, SS), Toluene (MS, SS) which are then exhaled^{5, 6}
• Cancer causing toxin – Research has shown that heating propylene glycol changes its chemical composition, producing small amounts of propylene oxide, a known cancerous toxin which is then exhaled⁷
• Brain damage – the brain doesn’t stop developing until around 25 years old and nicotine can damage developing brains¹⁵
• Respiratory distress and disease – due to heavy metals including nickel, tin and lead which are exhaled⁸
• Lung damage^{13, 14} – Read more about how vaping can damage the lungs

Research is ongoing to determine the full extent of side effects of vaping.

Read Vaping top tips and expert advice

Are kids attracted to vaping and does that necessarily lead to them smoking?

Early on in the development of the e-cigarette market, manufacturers assured the tobacco control community (people like Action on Smoking and Health) and other interested parties that the target market for e-cigarettes was existing smokers and that the marketing, positioning, and messaging for the e-cigarette would be as a quit smoking aid.

That isn’t quite how it has turned out. By 2014 there were still no controls over who could sell e-cigarettes, who could buy them, what was in them, and how they might be advertised. In fact, 2014 saw the first UK TV advert showing smoker-like behaviour – an attractive, alluring model exhaling smoke-like vapour – in decades. The brands using these tactics are clearly targeting everyone, not just smokers. Advertising firms can once again use humour, sex and hugely aspirational imagery to sell nicotine addiction.

Of course these ads are aimed primarily at young people, as are the packaging, flavours and pack designs. E-cigarettes have been marketed aggressively to children. The statistics show that increasing numbers of children are being drawn into using them as well, with more and more studies confirming that more kids are using e-cigarettes at a younger age than would use normal cigarettes, and that more of those kids will eventually smoke real cigarettes. The nicotine industry of course loves this. Get the addicts younger and you maximize the lifetime income per user. One can only assume that the treasury departments of government feel likewise. The taxation of addiction is extremely lucrative.

A certain number of kids have always have tried out cigarettes, but the way e-cigarettes are creeping into everyday life is different. It’s creating a new gateway into smoking and nicotine addiction.

Because zero nicotine capsules or liquid can be purchased, youngsters really can say that the e-cigarette they are using is not addictive. Who’s to know different? Especially when they come in flavours such as bubble-gum, watermelon, cotton candy, popcorn, and cherry cheesecake. Who do you think those flavours are targeting? Your kids!

Kids all over the country are trying out e-cigarettes and think nothing of passing them around the class claiming that “They’re not addictive” and “They taste nice”. Of course before too long – the zero nicotine capsules are discarded in favour of the ones that contain nicotine.

As if getting youngsters as young as 12 addicted to nicotine isn’t bad enough, we’ve warned for years that e-cigarettes will prove to be a gateway into “smoking for real” for most of those youngsters. The latest studies confirm our worst fears.

You can imagine how the kids get sucked in. Firstly, the peer pressure to move on to “the real thing” exists already, but more significantly for the simple reason that no e-cigarette will ever deliver nicotine as efficiently as a cigarette. All addicts eventually end up looking for ways to get more of their drug into their bloodstream faster, so it is with nicotine. That’s where cigarettes come in. Sadly, another generation of kids are sliding into the nicotine pit.

Final Thoughts

Second-hand and third-hand vaping may appear to be nothing more than sweet smells but the reality is different. Using electronic cigarettes around children risks exposing them to damaging chemicals which can harm them and affect their development as well as increasing the likelihood that they will vape as they get older. It is therefore not safe to vape in a confined space with children just as it isn’t with smoking cigarettes (although there is no doubt that the former is by far the lesser of two evils). You may be interested in these articles:

Teen Vaping & How to Help Teens to Quit

Vaping While Pregnant – What are the risks?

Vaping Statistics and Facts

Can Vaping Damage the Lungs?