I am a survivor of childhood asthma, but not one without its scars. Few people know that even those who do outgrow the actual asthma flare-ups can be left with a deformed chest cavity, bronchial tubes that are susceptible to recurring bronchitis and pneumonia, and even an increased risk of lung cancer later in life. So it is imperative that asthma not just be treated like one of the inevitable diseases of childhood, but that it be identified and treated aggressively so that it not be either a blight on childhood nor a risk factor to continuing health in adults.

Various risk factors can alert you to the need to have your child diagnosed for asthma. These include:

1. Presence of allergies
2. Frequent respiratory infections including bronchitis or pneumonia
3. Low birth weight
4. Exposure to tobacco smoke before and/or after birth
5. Being male, black or raised in a low-income environment

More and more children seem to be developing asthma and no one really knows why. It could be that more children are being exposed to allergens such as dust, air pollution, and second-hand smoke. These factors all are triggers of asthma. Since asthma is a type of auto-immune disorder, it could be that our newly hyper sterile environment is at fault, and that children are not exposed to enough childhood illnesses or benign bacteria to build up their immune systems. And it could also be that decreasing rates of breastfeeding have prevented important substances from the mother's immune system from being passed on to her babies.

Common symptoms of asthma include the following:

1. Wheezing. This is a high-pitched, whistling sound that your child may make during an asthma attack. Tell the child's doctor if you ever hear it during coughing or breathing. Some children, as I did, develop a permanent wheeze that they can hear if they breathe out hard enough. But not all people who wheeze have asthma, and not all those who have asthma wheeze. In fact, if asthma is really severe, there may not be enough movement of air through a person's airways to produce this sound.

2. Chronic cough, especially at night and after exercise or exposure to cold air. Likely over time and expansion by repeated coughing the bronchial tubes will gain somewhat of a hollowness and the child's cough will permanently change to sound more 'croupy.'

3. Shortness of breath, especially during exercise or at higher altitudes or when laughing or talking. All children get out of breath when

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