Honey–it worked!

EhiPassika posted yesterday about a study indicating that a spoonful of honey is more effective than over the counter medications for soothing coughs in children. Since the boy has been suffering with a nighttime cough for the past few days, I decided last night to give the folk remedy a try.

The boy was pleased with the taste of the elixir, and I’m happy to report that our very limited unscientific trial of one night was a success. The honey was just as effective as the children’s cough medicine that he’d been given on previous nights. In both cases, he received a “dose” of honey/medicine at bedtime and it suppressed the coughing for about 5 hours. Another dose when he woke up with a coughing fit at 1 am quieted the cough for the remainder of the night.

I’m not prepared to throw away the cough medicine just yet, but I’ll definitely offer honey first from now on.

Secondhand smoke and babies

A new study from the UK confirms what most of us already understood: that second-hand smoke is bad for babies.

“Our findings clearly show that by accumulating cotinine, babies become heavy passive smokers secondary to the active smoking of parents,” Dr. Mike Wailoo of the University of Leicester and colleagues write in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

“This is the first time we’ve got direct information on the effect of smoking in homes on babies,” Wailoo told Reuters Health. “It clarifies and I think it firms up information that we all thought we had.” He added that cotinine is just one of thousands of potentially harmful nicotine byproducts that can accumulate in infants’ bodies.

The American Cancer Society offers tips on quitting here.