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Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that makes airways (bronchial tubes) especially sensitive to irritants, which is characterized by difficulty in breathing.
Asthma is a highly ranked adult chronic health condition in most Western countries. It is also the leading chronic illness among children.
Asthma cannot be cured; however, it can be controlled for most patients so that they only suffer from minimal and infrequent symptoms, which allows them to live an active life.
If you suffer from asthma, it is important to remember that managing it is a significant part of your life. To be able to control your asthma, you need to stay away from things that irritate your airways and that the prescribed medicines are taken as directed by your doctor.
Good control and treatment of asthma is most important for pregnant women.
Some asthma medicines can actually help protect your baby and aid in its normal development.
Research have shown that inhaled steroids (or any preventer inhaler) and bronchodilators (or any reliever inhaler), used within reason, by pregnant women actually cause harm to the unborn child.
Experts have examined years of accumulated evidence and they have all reached the same conclusion: keeping asthma under control during pregnancy actually protects the unborn child, and there are no side effects from the medicines that come close to cancelling the actual treatment benefits.
It is always best to keep medicine use to a minimum while you are carrying an unborn child.
Here are additional tips for women who are pregnant:
– Do not smoke and do not allow others to smoke around you during pregnancy. Smoking is not only bad for your asthma, but it also causes asthma-like changes in the unborn child’s lungs. You will not use too much medicine if you do not smoke or live in a smoke-free environment.
– As much as possible avoid known allergens or causes of asthma, like house dust mites and pets, during the entire pregnancy. Avoiding these allergens lets you lessen the amount of medicine intake.
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– Visit your doctor for regular and up-to-date advice on your asthma condition. Be sure that you are regularly taking your standard asthma treatment to avoid worsening of your condition. Remember that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
The pregnant woman’s asthma symptoms may either worsen or get better during pregnancy. About one-third of pregnant women with asthma experience an increase in severity. If this happens to you then it is best if you seek expert advice.
Some women experience asthma for the first time during their pregnancy. There are cases that they are asthma sufferers during their childhood years then experience the condition only when they get pregnant. Basically, pregnancy can have a bad effect on asthma.
Whether this is your first time to suffer from asthma or it is a recurrence, it means that your lungs are nearly normal hence early treatment should be very effective.
There are rare occasions in which asthma can be bad during pregnancy, and hospital admission is required to control the asthma of the expectant mother. The good news here is that as the pregnancy progresses, the asthma condition becomes much better.
Go to an asthma specialist if this situation does happen to you. Do not be satisfied with a general physician or an obstetrician for that matter.
The rules for treating asthma during pregnancy are just the same as you would with other medical conditions. The significant difference here is that your pregnancy necessitates more care and attention than other people.
Tagged with: asthma during pregnancy • asthma treatment
Filed under: Asthma