It can sometimes be hard to know how to be involved as an expectant or new dad. Check out our checklist for some practical tips! There's space for you to add your own ideas too!

Now is the perfect time to think about your own and your family's health and safety. Your health, lifestyle, environment (and even your driving!) may now have an affect on THREE people - you, your partner and your baby.

Children breathe faster than adults do, so they absorb more of the harmful chemicals found in second hand smoke. Children who are exposed to second-hand smoke:

• Have twice as many ear infections
• Are twice as likely to have asthma
• Have more respiratory problems, such as coughs or phlegm, and are twice as likely to wheeze
• Are three times as likely to get either bronchitis or pneumonia
• Are twice as likely to have allergies
• Might spit up more often
• Are more likely to be hospitalized for an illness before they are a year old
• Are more likely to be cranky, restless, and hyperactive

You can help your child from the very beginning by ensuring she is not exposed to second-hand smoke. Second-hand smoke also affects the brain. Children of smokers can fall behind the children of non-smokers in reading, math and general ability in school.

Children of non-smokers are much less likely to become smokers themselves!