When Your Child Has Asthma
By editor | July 6, 2007
As a mother holds her seven-month-old baby, she notices that he’s breathing faster and harder than normal. With each breath, his belly is moving in and out more than usual. She hears a faint “whistling sound with each breath as well. She never saw this in her older child. “What’s wrong?”she worries.
The father if an eight-year-old observes that his daughter often gets winded when she plays outside. She slows down and sits on a bench while her friends race around the playground.
A twelve-year-old has trouble inhaling enough air. He describes the sensation as “trying to suck in air through a soda straw.”
These children have asthma, the most common chronic health problem among children today. Chronic means that the condition is ongoing it comes and goes but never disappears entirely. Does asthma mean that your child will have a lifetime of serious, continual health problems? Absolutely not.
Asthma cannot be cured, but it can be treated and controlled. Your child can lead a normal, active life. Bringing asthma under control may not happen overnight. It will take some effort by you, your child, and the people around you, but there is no question that children with asthma can be helped. The purpose of this book is to help parents and children limit the frequency and severity of asthma symptoms by controlling environmental factors that trigger symptoms and by managing medicines that prevent and treat asthma episodes.
If your child has been diagnosed with asthma or if you suspect it you want to understand as much as possible about its causes, treatments, and prognosis so you can help your child manage this disease without compromising all the joys and adventures of childhood. The more you learn about asthma, the more confident you will be about helping your child avoid serious consequences and medical emergencies. Children have a great talent for picking up parents’ vibes, so the more knowledgeable and assured you are about controlling your child’s asthma, the more at ease your child will be.
Let’s begin with some basic facts:
- Nearly 5 million American children have asthma, and the numbers are growing nationally and worldwide.
- Over 7 percent (about one in fifteen) of children between ages five and fourteen have asthma. That’s up from only 3 percent in the 1980s.
- Asthma is the leading reason why children miss school, visit emergency rooms, and are hospitalized, as well as a major reason why parents miss work because they must care for children with asthma.
Tagged under:Asthma asthma episodes asthma symptoms month old baby parents and children
Topics: Asthma |
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