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Childhood asthma: dispelling some commonly held beliefs

Asthma is the most common chronic disease in childhood. It is often underdiagnosed and undertreated, and can cause unnecessary burden in a child’s life... Asthma is also the most common cause of recurrent pneumonia in children. When treated appropriately, children with asthma can live full and active lives without limitation from their breathing.

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Featured

  NoAttacks.org

Use this Asthma Action Plan at home, school, and with your babysitter. Be sure to give a copy of your child’s asthma plan to your child’s school (teacher, coach, nurse) and talk it over with them. In case of an attack, they will know what to do. If you follow the steps in this plan, you will help prevent your child from having asthma attacks.

  Asthmaniac

Asthmaniac is the first telemedicine clinic, devoted to asthma primary care!

 Are Gas Stoves Really Causing Asthma?

We know that gas stoves emit nitrogen oxides and that, in general, those are not good. We know that air pollution, in general, is bad for respiratory symptoms, including asthma. Indoor, unventilated air pollution is especially problematic. So it seems very plausible that there is some link here. However: The magnitude is likely small.

 Gas stoves could be making thousands of children in America sick

Staggering asthma numbers add to a growing call to phase out the use of gas stoves in homes.

Articles of Interest

Does Civilization Cause Asthma?

Asthma is the most common chronic disorder among children and the leading cause of both childhood hospitalizations and school absenteeism, robbing children of 10 million school days a year and their parents of an untold number of work days.

A Guide For Parents of Children With Asthma

By reading this article, you will learn how to prevent asthma attacks by using medications and a peak flow meter. You will be given a list of early warning signs, and how to stop an attack if your child is having one.

A refresher on childhood asthma: What families should know and do

Know your child’s triggers...

Air pollution linked to ‘huge’ rise in child asthma GP visits

Dirty air is already known to increase hospital treatment for severe asthma attacks and other respiratory problems. But the new research is the first using clinical data to show increased illness among the much bigger number of people who seek treatment from their GP.

Asking for Help is OK!

If only I had known what resources were available to our family!

Asthma Doesn’t Take a Vacation

Parents may feel reluctant to give medications every day to a child who does not look immediately ill, but experts say they should talk with a doctor first.

Asthma in Toddlers

Detecting asthma in toddlers can be tricky. Learn how to identify the symptoms – and find out what you can do about them – so that you and your child can breathe easy.

Asthma Mom’s 10 Rules to De-Trigger Your House

When my daughter coughed and flared all day and night before we achieved that elusive asthma control, walking into my house felt a lot like stepping into the scene of a horror movie.

Childhood Asthma Rates Level Off, But Racial Disparities Remain

There's finally some good news about childhood asthma in the United States: After rising for decades, the number of children with the breathing disorder has finally stopped increasing and may have started falling, according to a government analysis.

Children with respiratory conditions face a twofold threat this winter

Admissions for people with respiratory conditions almost double during the winter – and the majority of those admitted are young children.

Doctors Might Have Been Focusing on the Wrong Asthma Triggers

The pandemic was a big social experiment that sent asthma attacks plummeting.

Failure to Protect?

A study of asthmatic children, most of them Black, shows how a common clinical trial design can expose vulnerable participants to serious risks

Fast food and takeaways linked to surge in child asthma and allergies

Teenagers more likely to have severe asthma and eczema if they eat fast food more than three times a week, study shows.

Gas cooking is associated with worsening asthma in kids. But proper ventilation helps

Increasing evidence suggests cooking with gas may make asthma worse in children. However, proper use of range hoods could reduce that risk.

Genetic Test Could Predict Which Kids Will Have Lasting Asthma Symptoms

Half of children with asthma will continue to suffer from the respiratory disorder as adults, and a new genetic test could reveal who remains at risk past childhood.

How air pollution can ruin schoolchildren’s lives

Globally, says the World Health Organisation, more than 90% of children under 15 breathe air that puts their health at serious risk. The young are especially susceptible, because their lungs are still developing and their breathing is faster than adults’, so they take in more pollutants relative to their body weight.

How Antibiotics Could Be Changing Your Kids’ Gut Bacteria For The Worse

The more courses of antibiotics a child had, the higher their risk for developing asthma and becoming overweight.

How to Control Asthma in Children

Becoming familiar with the factors that trigger your child’s asthma can be the first step to helping control your child’s asthma. There are different triggers for different children and individual triggers can change with the seasons. Parents should learn the specific triggers for their child.

Indoor Air Pollution and Asthma in Children

While there is a large literature linking ambient air pollution and cardiopulmonary disease, less is known about the impact of indoor air pollution on morbidity and mortality. Children, the elderly, and women are the most vulnerable with respect to potential indoor air pollution health effects because they spend more time in the home environment.

New Study Links BPA and Childhood Asthma

Kids exposed to a commonplace chemical early in life are more likely to have asthma, according to a study published today.

New study sees possible link between aluminum in childhood vaccines and risk of asthma, but caveats abound

Anew study suggests there may be a link between aluminum used in vaccines that are given to young children in the first two years of life and the risk of developing asthma before age 5. The findings are preliminary and both the authors and others who have studied the data urge caution in the interpretation of the results.

One in Five Kids May 'Outgrow' Asthma

Swedish researchers who followed more than 200 children with asthma found that at 19 years of age, 21 percent were in remission, meaning they had no wheeze or need for inhalers. Remission was more common among boys, they found.

Poor Children Drive City's Asthma Rate

Nationwide, the number of people with asthma continues to grow, with about one in 10 children, or 10%, having asthma in 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC classifies children as between the ages of 1 and 18. Asthma has been a persistent problem in urban centers with high poverty rates.

Prenatal exposure to ultra-fine particles increases a child’s risk of asthma, study finds

Factors from air pollution to smoking to drug use can shape fetal and childhood development, but the new study is one of the first to specifically link ultra-fine particle exposure in utero to a higher chance of kids developing asthma.

The Conversation I Love to Have with Parents about Asthma

Nothing stays the same, including your child’s asthma. We know that asthma is a chronic disease. Symptoms and severity may change from season to season, month to month, or even year to year. This is why to better manage your child’s asthma, I have to continuously assess if it is well controlled.

The influence of urban exposures and residence on childhood asthma

Children with asthma who live in urban neighborhoods experience a disproportionately high asthma burden, with increased incident asthma and increased asthma symptoms, exacerbations, and acute visits and hospitalizations for asthma.

Understanding the Basics of Childhood Asthma

Asthma is a common disease that affects children, with experts reporting that about 5% of people have asthma. Although often easy to diagnose if your child has a cough, wheezing, and trouble breathing, it can be much more difficult to diagnose if the child simply coughs a lot. Take our asthma screening quiz to see if your child has any of the symptoms of asthma.

Why Obama Said Global Warming Gave His Daughter Asthma

It's nothing new for public figures to use their kin to elicit sympathy for a cause. But politically, connecting global warming to disease is still a bold move.

Resources

3 Things Many Parents Don’t Know About Childhood Asthma

Wheezing is probably the most familiar symptom parents cite when considering the possibility that their child has asthma. But not all children wheeze when having an asthma attack, and not all wheezing is related to asthma.

Asthma Mom

I'm Amy Anaruk, a non-asthmatic freelance writer parenting two elementary-age daughters, one with the lung disorder that takes and just keeps on taking. There are worse things my child could have and at age nine she is in good health, but pediatric asthma often seems overwhelming

My Life as an Asthma Mom

Written by a mom with allergies and asthma. Caring for her 3 children who have allergies and asthma and offering advice on how to avoid the pitfalls.

Asthma Allergies Children

AsthmaAllergiesChildren.com is a website devoted to ideas that are within the guidelines set by accredited medical authorities for treatment of asthma and allergies. We will not provide a platform for theories or approaches that do not meet the standards our physicians use in their clinical practice.

The Angry Asthma Mama

Working mother of 3 asthmatic boys - two of whom are also on the autism spectrum - tries to make it all work, keep her monkeys healthy, and figure out the cause of (and solution to) the asthma and autism epidemics. Because being the working mother of 3 just wasn't ENOUGH work.

Allergy Moms

Our mission is to help you have a joyful life with food allergies.

Asthma.com

This Web site is designed to help you learn more about asthma and encourage discussions with your healthcare provider about your asthma treatment plan. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be equipped to develop good habits for asthma management. Remember, whenever you have any question at all about asthma, call your healthcare provider as soon as possible

Merck Childhood Asthma Network

The Merck Childhood Asthma Network, Inc. is the only private foundation solely focused on addressing the complex and growing problem of childhood asthma in the United States.

BabyCenter

It's important that you work with your child's healthcare provider to prevent and treat asthma attacks. With the right medications, education, an asthma action plan, and regular medical follow-up, most asthmatic children do just fine.

CDC

In most cases, we don’t know what causes asthma, and we don’t know how to cure it.

Children’s Health Fund

Children’s Health Fund is committed to ensuring high quality health care to America’s most disadvantaged children.

European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients' Association

There are millions of people in Europe with asthma, allergy and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). We work to support them by sharing information about their conditions and by advocating on their behalf in parliament.

Food Allergy Research & Education

Food Allergy Research & Education works on behalf of the 15 million Americans with food allergies, including all those at risk for life-threatening anaphylaxis. This potentially deadly disease affects 1 in 13 children in the United States — or roughly two in every classroom.

HealthyChildren.org

The air we breathe is filled with pollen, pollutants, and dust. Most children and adults are unaffected by these intruders. For a large number of children, however, these simple contaminants can make life miser­able.

Parents

How can you tell if your child is suffering from asthma? Learn what it is, how to manage it, and how to live with asthma. Plus: What kinds of physical activities are best for kids with allergies? Find out here.