Children with Asthma - What Parents Need to Know

It is always difficult to handle the situation in the case of asthma children. When we talk about children with asthma, the parents find themselves it is very difficult and hard to diagnose its symptoms properly.

I was seven when a doctor finally diagnosed me with asthma in 1968. It wasn’t so common back then and doctors were not as familiar with it.

When I was eight I started taking Marax. Thankfully, the medical profession has much better medications to control this disease today than it did back then.

Today about 80% of the children who develop asthma have their first symptoms before the age of 5.

The symptoms in children with asthma can include bronchitis, pneumonia, gastroesophageal reflux, colds, breathlessness, wheezing and coughing. Symptoms like wheezing and coughing can be a normal disease, but a trial run of medication must be taken to determine if it is asthma.

Treatment of Asthma Attacks

Children with asthma need relief medicines to open the airways during the attacks. This relief medicine is taken in the form of inhaler. Some children cannot take an inhaler by itself.

In that case, they are given a nebulizer to control the attacks. A nebulizer has a mask and hose connected to a machine that aerosolizes the asthma medicine. Nowadays, nebulizers come with fun characters to make it easy and tolerable for the infants.

The national institutes of health recommended long-term daily control medication to children of age 5 or below. However, the recommendations are only for certain conditions of asthmatic children.

Firstly, the treatment of symptoms with relief medication is needed more than two times per week. Secondly, the child needs to have the asthma symptoms for at least two nights per month and lastly, the child needs to have severe episodes less than 6 weeks apart.

Treatment through Medicines

The best treatment for asthma attacks are inhaled steroids for adults and children above 5 yrs. The children below 5 years should be consulted by an asthma specialist. A nebulizer called Pulmicort Respules has been approved by the food and drug administration among infants of one year.

There are other steroids like Cromolyn, Nedocromil and Theophyline, which can be used in nebulizer. The alternative to inhaled steroids is Leukotriene modifiers and Singulair. These are in the tablet form and given to the children of age 2 or above.

Monitoring of Asthma in Children

Parents need to take care and watch for the asthma in children because children cannot use the peak flow meter to measure the situation of asthma.

The signs that need to be watched are wheezing, coughing, skin on the neck and sucked look of chest, and signs of breathing difficulties. When the child becomes old, they are aware of their situation and can allow parents to use peak flow meter.