We’ve Come a Long Way Baby

Many Louisiana women still dont know that heart disease is the number one killer of women in America. And what is one of the most significant contributors to heart disease? Tobacco. March is Womens History Month and The Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living (TFL) urges women to be empowered to free themselves and their families from the toxic effects of tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke.
Women now comprise nearly half the workforce, and make most of the health-related decisions for their households, says Tom Houston, MD, TFLs director. We want to encourage them to make their homes smoke-free and to consider quitting if they smokeIn its earliest ads, Virginia Slims portrayed cigarettes as glamorous and liberated. But in reality, smoking and secondhand smoke imprison women by co-opting their health, their workplaces choices and the health of their families.

Some facts about women and tobacco use:

Cigarette smoking kills an estimated 178,000 women in the United States every year. Women who smoke are four times more likely to have coronary heart disease. Since 1950, lung cancer deaths among women have increased more than 600 percent. Lung cancer kills more women every year than breast cancer. One out of every five high school girls is a current smoker. Smoking and secondhand smoke can endanger even a healthy pregnancy, and increases the chances of premature birth or having a low birth weight baby. It can also reduce a womans ability to become pregnant. In young children, exposure to secondhand smoke is associated with an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia.

These facts are the reason TFL is encouraging women to free themselves from the toxic effects of tobacco use either by quitting smoking or by protecting themselves (and their children) against exposure to secondhand smoke, says Dr. Houston.
The Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living provides statewide coordination of existing tobacco control initiatives, funds innovative community programming for tobacco control, and develops statewide media campaigns to help reduce the excessive burden of tobacco use on the states resources and improve Louisianas overall health and quality of life.