London: Ban on smoking in public and the workplaces has led to a 10% drop in premature births and in emergency asthma treatment for children, researchers said on Friday.
The evidence, based on the records of more than two million children, comes from 11 published investigations into the impact of local or national smoking bans in the US, Canada and four European countries.
Within a year of a ban being imposed, rates of pre-term births and hospital treatment for childhood asthma each fell by more than a tenth, researchers found.
Previous research into the benefits of smoking bans have focused mainly on adults, but children are disproportionately affected by passive smoking because their developing lungs and immune systems are more easily irritated.
A previous study in 2011, of 192 countries, found that children account for more than a quarter of the annual toll of 600,000 deaths attributed to second-hand smoking.
The new investigation, published in The Lancet, covered more than 2.5 million births and 250,000 hospital admissions of children who suffered an asthma attack. The data was for the period 2008-2013.