subject: Understanding Asthma To Keep Your Child Breathing Easy [print this page] Does your child ever cough, wheeze or feel tightness in his or her chest? If so, your child may be suffering from asthma. For most children, breathing is simple. They breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth with air going into the windpipe, through the airways and into the lungs. However, children who suffer from asthma do not have as easy a time breathing; their airways are very sensitive, making breathing much more difficult.
When your child has an asthma flare-up or an asthma attack, it can be very alarming. When an asthma attack occurs, a person's airways get swollen and narrow, making it hard for air to get in and out of their lungs. By understanding asthma and asthma attacks, you can help your child breath easier.
How Common Is Asthma?
Asthma is actually much more common than you may think, with as many as seven million children suffering from it. About one or two kids out of ten children are affected by asthma. It can start at any age, but is most common among school-age children. There is not a consensus about why one person's airways are more sensitive then another person's, but we do know that asthma does tend to run in families.
So what does this mean? If asthma runs in your family it means that if a child has asthma, he or she may also have a parent, sibling or other relative that has asthma or had it as a child. Asthma flare-ups may sound like a cold or sickness, but it is not contagious.
Treating Asthma
If your child has asthma, they should try to avoid things that can cause their airways to tighten. In some cases, the trigger cannot be avoided. In these instances, there is medication that can help your child manage their asthma. Not everyone's asthma is the same, but there are different types of medicine available to help treat and manage asthma.
Asthma is not like curing a sore throat or an earache where the same medicine is generally prescribed. Instead, your North Potomac pediatrician will consider the causes of your child's asthma flare-ups, how fast they happen and serious they are. Your pediatrician will then consider the best kind of treatment for your child.
Some children will take asthma medication only once in a while, when they have a flare-up. This treatment is referred to as rescue medicine because it works fast to open the airways so the person can breathe properly. Other children may need to take a controller medicine every day, which help to prevent flare-ups form happening.
To learn more about asthma or to schedule an appointment, contact your North Potomac, MD pediatrician as soon as you can.
