Asthma is the most common chronic disease for children affecting approximately 1 in 12 kids.

Asthma can interrupt a child’s normal lifestyle, creating problems with exercise, sleep and school attendance. With appropriate treatment, however, a child with asthma should expect to have a normal life, with no or few missed school days, normal breathing day and night, and a normal ability to exercise.

But asthma that is poorly controlled often results in emergency department visits and hospitalizations.

Achieving good asthma control can decrease, or even eliminate asthma attacks and decrease the need to use the hospital.

Good asthma care results in good asthma control. Asthma control is accomplished by paying attention to four areas of care, each of which is important. The four areas include:

1) Recognizing that the child has asthma and therefore needs good asthma care;

2) Looking at the child’s indoor and outdoor environments for triggers of the asthma;

3) Educating and working with the child and family to understand how asthma is cared for and how to avoid emergencies with asthma; and

4) Asthma medicines.

A child with asthma should have a usual care source such as a regular doctor or a regular clinic where all the providers know the child.

The environment around a child with asthma is an important predictor of how well a child will do. Children with asthma living in the same home with a smoker will have more problems. Smokers should quit smoking, and, until ready to quit, should smoke only outside of the home. Smokers should never smoke in the home or car with a child who suffers from asthma.

Pets with hair or fur can also cause problems for children with asthma, should not be kept in the house, certainly not in the child’s bedroom.

Homes with poorly functioning roofs or plumbing problems can have water leaks, allowing mold to grow inside, which can make asthma worse. If these problems exist in the home, they should be fixed or the child should be removed from the area.

Medicines are also important for asthma care and control. For children with persistent asthma, medicines such as the inhalants are used to help decrease the asthma symptoms. Taking and using the inhaled steroids requires a special technique, including the use of a spacer device. These medicines will not work unless they are taken correctly and consistently. Once an inhaled steroid is started, it is usually continued for months to years.

Regular visits to the doctor’s office are important and children with even the mildest asthma should be seen twice yearly: once for a physical and once for an asthma check-up and influenza vaccination.

Having asthma is not a good reason to avoid exercise. If a child has asthma problems more than two nights per month or two days per week, he/she should be seen by their doctor. If already on medicine for asthma, more or different medicine may be needed.

For a child with a history of asthma who is not taking medicine but is experiencing more asthma problems, it may be time to try a daily medicine to control the asthma.

Regular doctor visits will help to monitor a child’s asthma to achieve the right balance of medicines, improve the family’s understanding and care of the asthma, and help the child to experience a normal life.