When Children Have Asthma

Many children, as well as adults, suffer from asthma. Asthma is a lung disease that causes the smaller air passages, called bronchioles, to constrict. When this happens, there is moderate to severe difficulty in breathing accompanied by wheezing. Although the wheezing isn't always audible it is always present. Although adults may not, children do experience some anxiety during an attack.

The attack is sometimes accompanied by an infection in the respiratory tract. If an infection is present there will also be fever. When fever is present, a physician must be consulted, as antibiotics may be needed in addition to the regular asthma medicine.

Children with asthma have many problems in school. While asthma is rarely life threatening it does impact a child's life. Asthmatic students are often absent from school; they make many trips to doctors' offices and hospital. They take a lot of medicine and have many injections. Attacks may be frequent and in some children attacks can be brought on by anything that makes one breathe fast such as running or even laughing.

Naturally, neither parents nor doctors want children participating in any activity that will precipitate an attack. Consequently, these children may not be able to play sports or take physical education classes. This some times causes problems in school with teachers and administrators, particularly with over zealous physical education teachers. Parents need to be sure that the school administration and teachers thoroughly understand the child's limitations and strictly abide by parents' and doctors' instructions.

This is an issue that a parent cannot take for granted as in the past there have been incidents in schools where parental instructions as well as doctors' have been ignored with unpleasant consequences for the child.

While children may not mind missing physical education classes, they will feel badly when they have to forego some social activities. Therefore, parents and health providers need to monitor the child closely to try to determine those situations that trigger an attack. Since between attacks, children with asthma are normal and can participate in physical activities to the level of their tolerance.

There is also another issue that parents need to resolve with the school. It is common for children with asthma to have an attack during the school day. This means the children may need to carry their medicine with them since they need to use it just as soon as the attack starts. Schools may take exception to this as many schools have rules that any medicine taken by a child during the school day must be administered by a nurse or a designated substitute. Again, parents need to be sure that the school understands and accepts the fact that their child will carry and administer the medication as necessary.

Both parents and school personnel need to be aware of the fact that asthma has emotional aspects as well as physical. It is important that children understand their physical limitations and don't give in to the temptation to overdo in order to keep up with their peers. There are books written especially for children about living with asthma.

Also, many children outgrow their asthma so this is something that the child can look forward to.