The purpose of this study was to describe parents' attitudes to smoking and their experience of the tobacco preventive work in antenatal care and in Child Health Care (CHC) in Sweden. A population based survey in which 62 percent of 3000 randomly selected parents with 1- and 3-year-old children answered a questionnaire. Fifty-six percent stated that smoking was registered in the health record of the child yet no further discussion regarding passive smoking took place. The parents' educational level and smoking status was related to the attitudes and experiences of the tobacco preventive work. The results indicated that the dialogue with parents regarding children and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure has to be redesigned and intensified in order to meet the needs of parents with different backgrounds.