Kid With Asthma - What Can You Do? For most kids, breathing is simple: They breathe in through their noses or mouths and the air goes into the windpipe.  But for kids with asthma, breathing can be a lot more difficult because their airways are very sensitive.  As many as 6 million kids in the United States have it which works out at about one or two kids out of 10.  That means if you have 20 kids in your class, two to four of them might have asthma.  Some kids are sensitive to allergens, substances that cause allergic reactions in the airways.  Common allergens for kids with asthma include dust mites (tiny bugs that live in dust), mold (if you've ever been in a damp basement and smelled something funny, it was probably mold), and pollen (from trees, grass, and weeds).  A lot of kids have asthma flare-ups when they are near furry animals.  In some kids, cold air itself can cause an asthma flare-up  (exercise-induced asthma). While some kids need to take asthma medication only once in a while, when they have a flare-up.  Other kids may need to take controller medicine every day.  And kids who have exercise-induced asthma should take their medication before exercising so they'll be able to finish all their laps around the track.  Whatever their triggers are, kids who have asthma should use a peak flow meter to get an idea of how well they are breathing that day and whether they need to take any medicine.  Sometimes kids take other asthma medicines by swallowing them.  Asthma is a common condition: More than 6 million kids and teens have it.  Many people with asthma are diagnosed with the condition when they're kids, but some don't find out that they have it until their teen years or even later.  A testing system that makes it easier for doctors to diagnose asthma and monitor the patients’ response to treatment is now up and running at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. As one of the doctors says “I've done research in this area for years, especially among young kids.  There's really never been a test that kids, who really can't cooperate well, could do to give us an answer to the question, is it the lungs or not.  The exam in little kids is notoriously unreliable.  You could look at things like whistling, coughing, wheezing etc but the best way to diagnose asthma in a kid is not by listening out for things like whistling but just looking at the kids' breathing. But the good news is if you have a kid with asthma chances are their asthma will go away or becomes less serious as they get older.        If you have an kid with asthma click here for more help and tips