Why Asthma In Infants Is Especially Worrying
Asthma in infants is an extremely worrying aspect of a dangerous condition which is continuously growing out of control. The percentages of people suffering from asthma in the Western world is continuing to rise, and many are being affected at an extremely young age. Although the condition has no definite cure it is possible to stabilize it in the vast majority of cases, and young people who are affected do have a significant chance of being free of the condition by the time they reach adulthood.
The phenomenon of asthma continues to baffle researchers and doctors alike, although there are definite clues as to where both the cause of the illness and the cause of the rise in numbers may be. Although there is probably a genetic factor involved, because those children born into a family with a history of asthma are at greater risk of developing it themselves, the major factors are sure to be environmental. This is more significant than ever when infants are concerned, as they have no control whatsoever over their environment, and are dependent purely upon their parents for care and relief. The fact that home environments in the developed world are becoming increasingly unnatural is not helping children grow up healthily.
A tendency has developed in recent years for an obsession with cleanliness, to the extent that parents will often use cleaning materials with harsh abrasive chemicals in the belief that eliminating germs is the way to keep children healthy. There is now widespread concern that the chemicals may be more harmful than the dirt and germs they are designed to eliminate, and also that an overly clean environment does more harm than good. Children do not get early exposure to allergens to which they could develop an immunity, so that when they do encounter them in later life they fall ill.
There are clearly both sides of the coin involved in the causes of asthma in infants. Pollutants in the atmosphere are having a severe effect, and additives and chemicals used in food production do not help either. A child born of a mother who smokes through pregnancy has a greatly increased asthma risk, although this factor is not as great as you may think when you realize that the numbers of smoking mothers has declined dramatically while the rates of asthma have been rising equally dramatically. Toxic pollutants from vehicle exhausts and the growth in road traffic is having a larger effect.
At the same time, exposure to allergens from cats and dogs in early infancy is actually causing a reduction in asthma rates, presumably because of the aforementioned effect of developing an immunity within the young child. It is a mistake to think that shielding a child from everything it will encounter in the outside world is necessarily the right thing to do. More thought needs to be given to shielding children from unnatural pollutants which can have a serious negative effect on their health, and on boosting the immune system of the body so that it can cope with those it does encounter.
Further research is obviously needed into asthma in infants, as it is with all types of asthma. This is a condition which is spiraling out of control despite the best efforts of the medical establishment. An infant body is obviously far less able to cope with drugs which are prescribed for asthma, even though the doses can be reduced to compensate for the small body size. It is necessary to use enough of the drugs we have available to stabilize the condition, because this greatly increases the chances of successful recovery from asthma in infants.
Constantine Smith
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