Tackling Childhood Asthma – 5 Things You Need To Remember
Angel Carmichael, guest contributor
If your child is diagnosed with asthma, it becomes an unfortunate condition you and your baby have to live with, it is a challenge one faces every day. But that doesn’t mean you let it dominate you and your child’s life. There are a number of ways to tackle your child’s asthma, control the triggers, sort out your resources and help your child. Here are some of the ways you can do the same:
Avoid smoking in front of them: This one is a no-brainer. Smoking harms people normally as well, so an asthmatic patient will suffer far worse. If you are not a smoker, don’t pick up the habit, if you are, then try quitting already. Nicotine patches have been encouraged in reducing the urge to smoke so try switching to that. The deal with tobacco is that it is particularly harmful for an asthmatic patient as it blocks off the much needed oxygen to reach the lungs, causing acute breathlessness. Cigarette smoke is right up on the list of triggers which cause asthma attacks. Therefore if your kid has asthma, quit the habit or else avoid smoking near him/her; also keep the child away from a smoking area.
Install an air purifier at home: This will be one of the best decisions you make as a parent/guardian of an asthmatic child. An air purifier will deem your home to be fit for the upbringing of your child. It will remove the contaminants from the air which are usually the biggest triggers for an asthma attack. The air purifier will help eliminate second-hand tobacco smoke, dust, pollen, mold spores and other triggers which lead to allergies. Buy and install one which will purify the air of the entire house and will not be restrained to one room.
Avoid certain cleaning products: Surprising but true, some ingredients in cleaning products cause increased sensitivity to asthma patients. Such chemicals irritate the patient’s lungs and make breathing difficult. Thus, if you are planning to clean up your residence then make sure you purchase natural products which are less likely to trigger your child’s asthma attack.
Stress free environment: Any form of stress in the house, mental or physical affects the child in every way. More importantly, if your child is suffering from asthma, then a stressful environment becomes a kind of trigger for an asthma attack. So try to keep the atmosphere of your house as lively and fun as possible. It helps a lot. A stress free environment has also proved to reduce the intensity of the asthma in patients.
Make an action plan: Devising a plan to combat your child’s asthma attack is a smart way to avoid triggering an attack.
- Firstly you can track your child’s symptoms on a chart. You can note down his/her coughing and wheezing, the number of times it occurs, the time of the day when the symptoms interrupt school, playtime and sleep and also the number of times your child needs an inhaler.
- You can record the peak flow readings on your child’s inhaler every day so that you know if your kid’s condition has become better or worse.
- You can set up schedules to vacuum, dust and clean your home when your child is not around. If there isn’t enough time for that, you can do simple things like replacing pillow covers and bed sheets with hypoallergenic covers which help remove triggers.
- Understand the symptoms of a full-blown attack and treat it with medication for short term basis.
- Also understand symptoms of an asthma emergency which can be determined by using of abdomen muscles to breathe or having low peak flow readings on the inhaler.
- This action chart that you have so painstakingly made, should be also given to the child’s teacher, nurse, babysitter and so on, so that they are aware of the symptoms and the appropriate medicines to give the kid.
Most importantly, discuss the chart and other things you do to avoid triggering your child’s asthmatic symptoms with your doctor on a regular basis. Updating and modification of the steps you take in tackling it are very important.
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This post has been authored by Angel Carmichael, an employee at Airpure Australia, a company dealing in an extensive range of carbon filters. She is an outdoor person and she enjoys going trekking and camping with her family when she isn’t busy with work.