Israeli sleep study finds secondhand smoke fragments children's sleep

A study published in Scientific Reports on 13 July 2026 by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba found that children exposed to tobacco smoke at home sleep in a more broken way, apparently because the smoke acts directly on the nervous system. The work was co-led by Professor Ariel Tarasiuk of Soroka's Sleep-Wake Disorders Unit and BGU's Department of Physiology, with Professor Aviv Goldbart of Soroka's Saban Pediatric Medical Center.

The team studied 30 otherwise healthy children aged one to 12 who had been referred for overnight testing because of suspected breathing problems during sleep. Nearly half had at least one parent who smoked, and most of those parents said their child was not exposed. Instead of relying on questionnaires alone, the researchers measured cotinine, a breakdown product of nicotine, in each child's first urine of the morning, and recorded brain waves, breathing, oxygen levels, heart rate and muscle activity through the night.

Children exposed to smoke had an arousal index about two-thirds higher than unexposed children, meaning many more brief shifts toward lighter sleep or waking. The higher their cotinine levels, the harder it was for them to stay in continuous sleep, and their total sleep time was shorter. Strikingly, the disruption appeared even when the children's breathing and blood oxygen were normal, which led the researchers to conclude that the smoke disturbs sleep through the central nervous system rather than only by irritating the airways.

The authors recommend that paediatricians routinely ask parents and caregivers about smoking, and they note that the study was small and observational.