The 2006 public smoking ban has led to an 18% fall per year in the number of Scottish children who have serious asthma attacks, new research has revealed.

Before the ban was introduced in Scotland, the number of hospital admissions for asthma attacks was rising by 5% a year amongst children under 15.

Critics of the ban argued that smokers would smoke more at home if they couldn’t smoke in other enclosed public places, but it seems this hasn’t happened.

"The evidence we have from Scotland is that it had the opposite effect.

“People are generally more accepting of the need to protect non smokers and vulnerable groups such as children," said Dr. Jill Pell from the University of Glasgow, who worked on the study.

"Children were being exposed to less second hand smoke. We went into the study hoping we’d see some health benefit coming out of that," Dr Jill added.

If you’re pregnant and struggling to kick the habit, find out why it’s so important to be smoke-free in pregnancy.