Is your child’s asthma making you nervous?

One of the major concerns for all parents is handling asthma in children, especially when the asthma symptoms become worse at night.

Just in a few years, asthma in children has increased significantly with nearly over a million children suffering from asthma. But how to handle asthma in the best possible way that cause sleepless nights to both parents and children? Here are some asthma guidelines that you should keep in mind while handling asthma in children.

Night Troubles

As just any parent of asthmatic children would know, it is a debilitating illness that disturbs many different aspects of a child’s day to day life. One problem that disturbs the maximum is that the asthma symptoms get worse at night, leading to disturbed sleep. The symptoms of asthma can range from mild to severe asthma attack. And they are quite unpredictable, so there is no way of knowing how your child will be affected. Though there are no expert answers, it is mostly related to our body clock as our breathing patterns and respiratory output is directly linked with our waking and sleeping state.

What Causes Asthma

To completely understand childhood asthma symptoms, it is important to understand the what causes asthma. One of the main causes of asthma is family history as the illness has a strong genetic link. If the parents have asthma, allergies or hay fever, then the child is more prone to become asthmatic. The other factor that can cause asthma in children is if the mother smokes during pregnancy or parents smoking around young children. Also if you have genetic predisposition to asthma, then it can be triggered very easily. The common asthma trigger setters include colds and viral infections, emotions, food, exercise, house dust mites, medicines, pollen, cigarette, smoke and weather.

Dust mites

One of the major challenges you face with children with asthma is their sensitivity to dust mites. When kids are in bed for long periods at night, they are easily exposed to high levels of dust mites that are found in the bed. This can lead to coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath. This can lead to a painful waking up night for the entire household. If there is coughing due to dust mites, you should immediately check with GP and make sure the child is getting the right asthma treatment. The ‘preventer inhalers’  i.e. inhalers for asthma, should always be kept handy in such situations.

Treatment for Asthma in Children

Once you have understood and diagnosed that the child has asthma then there are different things that can be done for asthma treatment. Of course the most obvious remains to be the asthma inhalers and medicines prescribed by doctor. You should also get your child checked for allergies of any kind. If allergy induced asthma is confirmed then it is best to reduce soft furnishings and make the bedrooms well ventilated. Also avoid putting too many cuddly toys on the bed. You may also have to remove the carpet from their room and also use a barrier system for the mattress, pillows and quilts. This will help keep the mite levels to the minimum.

So, though the road ahead is tough and challenging, it is worth the effort put to keep your child comfortable. Please let us know if you have more asthma information to help deal with asthma attacks better.