It is against the law to smoke in an enclosed public place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and from 1 July the same will apply in England.
The idea is to encourage smokers to quit and to protect non-smokers from the harm of secondhand smoke.
Up to 17,000 children are admitted to hospital in the UK each year as a result of the effects of second-hand smoke. The World Health Organisation cites passive smoking as a cause of bronchitis, pneumonia, coughing and wheezing, asthma, middle-ear infection, cot death, and possibly cardiovascular and neurobiological impairment in children.
Children's exposure to second-hand smoke has halved since the 1980s but is still significant. About 42 per cent of children live in homes with at least one smoker, and an ICM Research poll found that nearly half of all adults continue to smoke in a car when children are present, while almost a third smoke in the same room as children.
Smoke free homes
The ban on smoking in public places has raised concerns that children will be exposed to increased amounts of passive smoking at home.
The big question is whether smokers will offset the bar on smoking in public places by smoking more at home? Experience elsewhere suggests they will not. In the US and Australia, both of which have had smoking bans and restrictions for some time, there is evidence to show that families have voluntarily began to restrict smoking in their own homes.
When smoking bans were introduced in Australia, rates of discouraging visitors from smoking among all households with children began to rise in smoking and non-smoking households.
In Scandinavia, a study of 5,500 households in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland found that 75 per cent had introduced some limits to smoking in the house.
A study in the US found that counselling mothers who smoked resulted in a decline in smoke exposure from around 27 cigarettes a week at the start of the study to four and-a-half at three months, and to under four at 12 months.
A similar study in Canada found that six months after the birth of a child, 76 percent of the women in the study reported that they did not allow people to smoke in their homes.
Spreading the word
Here in the UK similar initiatives are beginning to be put in place.
Scotland introduced a smoking ban in March of last year, so can offer some ideas for encouraging parents to quit smoking.
A pilot scheme was set up last year in Glasgow nurseries and primary schools, encouraging parents to sign a pledge not to smoke at home. The scheme is run in the city's East End where smoking rates are particularly high. So far it has proved popular, with about 200 families having signed up.
Parents receive an information pack containing car stickers, and other no-smoking signs which can be put up in homes. Some nurseries have taken the opportunity to broach the subject with children and to organise themed events. The plan is to extend the pilot to other areas of the city where smoking is commonplace.
In 2002, Tyne and Wear health authority ran a community initiative to raise awareness of the impact of passive smoking on children among parents and carers.
This involved distributing leaflets and posters with the message 'stub it out - there's a kid about', to midwives, health visitors and children's departments of local hospitals.
The campaign resulted in an increase in the number of smokers who said they would consider giving up smoking. Almost a quarter of respondents indicated that they would consider protecting children from tobacco smoke in the future, while two thirds said they would avoid taking their children to smoky environments.
Instead of resulting in more parents smoking at home, there is evidence that the opposite is likely to happen. Practitioners' daily contact with parents and carers is the ideal opportunity to involve parents in campaigns. Through educational programmes and advice, parents can be encouraged to avoid or limit smoking in the home and in front of children.
This can also be run alongside themed activities in the nursery. NW
Further information
* www.icm research.co.uk
* www.smoke freeengland.co.uk