what ethnic group is especially likely to have childhood asthma?

Asthma in Children

Also called: Childhood asthma, Pediatric asthma

On this folio

Run across, Play and Learn

• Images
• Health Check Tools
• Videos and Tutorials

Summary

What is asthma?

Asthma is a chronic (long-term) lung disease. It affects your airways, the tubes that carry air in and out of your lungs. When you lot have asthma, your airways can become inflamed and narrowed. This tin can cause wheezing, coughing, and tightness in your chest. When these symptoms get worse than usual, information technology is called an asthma attack or flare-up.

How does asthma affect children?

Asthma ofttimes starts during childhood, ordinarily before age 5. Many children have asthma - it is the nearly common chronic disease of childhood. It can cause children to miss schoolhouse and end up in the hospital. But treatments can help manage asthma.

What causes asthma in children?

The verbal cause of asthma is unknown. Genetics and surroundings likely play a part in which children get asthma.

An asthma attack can happen when your child is exposed to an asthma trigger. An asthma trigger is something that can fix off or worsen asthma symptoms. Different triggers can cause different types of asthma:

• Allergic asthma is acquired by allergens. Allergens are substances that crusade an allergic reaction. They can include
  • Dust mites
  • Mold
  • Pets
  • Pollen from grass, trees, and weeds
  • Waste from pests such as cockroaches and mice
• Nonallergic asthma is caused by triggers that are not allergens, such as
  • Breathing in cold air
  • Certain medicines
  • Household chemicals
  • Infections such as colds and the flu
  • Outdoor air pollution
  • Tobacco fume
• Exercise-induced asthma happens during physical practise, especially when the air is dry out

Asthma triggers may be different for each child and can modify over time.

Which children are at risk for asthma?

Sure factors raise the gamble of asthma in children:

• Being exposed to secondhand smoke when their female parent is pregnant with them or when they are pocket-sized children
• Genetics and family history. Children are more than likely to have asthma if one of their parents has it, especially if information technology'south the mother.
• Race or ethnicity. Blackness and African Americans and Puerto Ricans are at higher risk of asthma than people of other races or ethnicities.
• Having other diseases or conditions such equally obesity and allergies
• Often having viral respiratory infections as young children
• Sex. In children, asthma is more common in boys. In teens, it is more common in girls.

What are the symptoms of asthma in children?

The symptoms of asthma in children include:

• Chest tightness
• Coughing, especially at dark or early morning time
• Breathing bug, such as shortness of breath, rapid breathing, or gasping for air
• Feeling tired
• Dark circles under the optics
• Being irritable
• Wheezing, which causes a whistling audio when they breathe out
• Trouble eating or sucking (in infants)

These symptoms tin range from mild to severe. They may happen ofttimes or only once in a while.

When children have an asthma attack, their symptoms get much worse. The attacks may come on gradually or suddenly. Sometimes they can exist life-threatening. Alert signs of a severe attack include astringent coughing, serious breathing issues, and turning very stake or blue in the face, lips and/or fingernails. If your child has those symptoms, get medical help correct abroad.

How is asthma in children diagnosed?

It tin be difficult to diagnose asthma in children, especially if they are young. Asthma has like symptoms every bit other childhood conditions. And some children may not take asthma symptoms very ofttimes, so it may seem like they are having respiratory infections instead.

Your child'south health care provider may use many tools to diagnose asthma:

• Concrete exam
• Medical history
• Chest ten-ray
• Lung role tests, including spirometry, to exam how well the lungs work. Younger children are usually not able to do these tests.
• Allergy skin or claret tests, if you have a history of allergies. These tests check which allergens cause a reaction from your immune system.

If you have a young child who cannot do lung function tests, the provider may advise doing a trial of asthma medicines. The trial involves giving your child the medicines for several weeks to see whether the symptoms get amend.

What are the treatments for asthma in children?

If your kid has asthma, y'all will work with their wellness care provider to create a handling plan. The programme will include ways to manage your child's asthma symptoms and prevent asthma attacks, such as:

• Strategies to avert triggers. For example, if tobacco smoke is a trigger for your child, you lot should not let anyone to smoke in your home or auto.
• Short-term relief medicines, also called quick-relief medicines. They help prevent symptoms or relieve symptoms during an asthma attack. They include an inhaler to take for your child at all times. It may also include other types of medicines which work apace to assistance open up your kid'due south airways.
• Control medicines. They piece of work by reducing airway inflammation and preventing narrowing of the airways. Non all children will take control medicines. Whether or not your kid needs them depends on how severe the asthma is and how often your child has symptoms.

If your child has a severe assail and the brusque-term relief medicines do not work, become medical assistance correct abroad.

Your child's provider may suit the treatment until the asthma symptoms are controlled.

Start Here

• Asthma Diary (Nemours Foundation)
• Help Your Child Gain Control Over Asthma (Environmental Protection Agency) - PDF
• School and Asthma (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish
• Teaching Your Child most Asthma (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology)
• What'southward an Asthma Activeness Plan? (Nemours Foundation)
• When to Go to the ER if Your Child Has Asthma (Nemours Foundation) Also in Castilian

• Practice-Induced Asthma (Nemours Foundation)
• Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction Defined (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology)

• Asthma Quiz (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology)
• Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction Quiz (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology)

• Know How to Apply Your Asthma Inhaler (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

pattersonapoing.blogspot.com

Source: https://medlineplus.gov/asthmainchildren.html

Share this post