As high as 10 percent of all children will suffer from asthma at some time during childhood. This debilitating lung disease can affect even infants. While some adolescents outgrow the symptoms, asthma often sneaks back during adulthood.
Asthma causes inflammation of the airways.
It swells the bronchial tubes, produces sticky secretions inside the breathing tubes, and contracts the muscle that spirals around the bronchial tubes. When a child's airflow is obstructed during an asthma attack, you may hear a wheezing or whistling sound. However, not all children with asthma wheeze. A chronic cough may be the only obvious sign, and a child's asthma may go unrecognized if his dry, hacking cough is erroneously attributed to recurrent bronchitis. Flare-ups are triggered most often by viral respiratory infections, cold air, exercise, tobacco smoke, and allergies.