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Breathing Room

The Importance of Clean Household Air

By Mark Stackpole

Is your house making you sick? Not just sick and tired of undone dishes, piles of laundry and stacks of forgotten toys, but "sick" as in physically ill? Your home is your castle, your refuge, but you may not be the only ones living there. Mold, insects and dust mites may also have made themselves comfortable. Perhaps pockets of moisture or a rickety vacuum cleaner are giving rise to some impurities in the air.

Healthy lungs are crucial to our overall well-being, and what if there is a pregnant woman in the house? She is breathing and filtering out impurities for two. For your health and the health of your family, it is important to know what kind of air you are actually breathing and what you can do to improve it.

May is National Clean Air Awareness Month, and if you haven't thought much about your household air, it's time to start.

Cigarette smoke and secondhand smoke are two obvious culprits when it comes to poor indoor air quality, and the risk is especially great for a pregnant woman and her unborn child.

"There is excellent evidence that if a pregnant woman is in the presence of secondhand smoke, for example a smoking husband, the child is at increased risk for asthma and other serious problems," says Norman Edelman, the executive vice president and chief medical officer of the American Lung Association. "Of course, if the mother smokes, the risks are much greater and also include prematurity and small birth weight," he adds.

Lauren Salomon of Houston, Texas, is an industrial/organizational psychologist and the mother of two with a third child on the way. As someone who has battled chemical sensitivities and asthma, indoor air quality is a priority for Salomon, but her concerns about indoor air quality are related to an unexpected source – the cleaners we use in an effort to keep our homes environmentally safe.

Want to see more?

• Danger in the Air: The Effects of Secondhand Smoke
• Toxic Mold: One Family's Story
• Cleaning Concerns: Can Household Products Harm Your Children?
• Talk about it!

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