كرشة النفس عند الأطفال – مقال انظر حولك

Causes of shortness of breath in children

Shortness of breath in children has many causes, including:

• Stress and anxiety.
• Playing sports; This causes them to have mild shortness of breath and chest pain.
• Pneumonia is one of the most prominent causes of shortness of breath in children due to phlegm and chronic cough.
• Accumulation of nasal secretions.
• Viral infections such as colds, flu, and sore throat.
• Allergic rhinitis, which causes phlegm to accumulate in the nose, leading to severe shortness of breath.
• Sinusitis.
• Bronchial problems, causing phlegm and tracheal stenosis.
• Asthma in children causes severe shortness of breath and chronic cough.
• Inhaling smoking for a long time.

Symptoms of shortness of breath in children

Shortness of breath in children has many symptoms, including:

• Severe nasal congestion and runny nose.
• Chronic cough.
• High body temperature.
• Changing the color of mucus to yellow or green and brown.
• Extreme feeling of fatigue and exhaustion.
• Inability to breathe.

Ways to prevent shortness of breath in children

• Children must be kept away from smoking sources and places so that smoke does not cause shortness of breath and infections.
• Stay away from crowds and crowded places, to prevent the spread and transmission of infection due to children’s weak immunity.
• Keep children away from eating fast food because it contains a high percentage of fat and fried foods.
• Giving children the habit of washing hands constantly, to prevent the spread of bacteria and germs.
• Give children plenty of warm fluids as they help calm coughs and treat phlegm.

What is the airway in children?

“It is a tube that allows air to pass through it during breathing. This tube starts from the larynx and branches into small tubes called bronchi to the lungs. Each tube ends with an alveoli that transports oxygen to the blood and transports carbon dioxide to the outside.

How do you breathe?

• Inhalation enters the lungs through the airway, and inhalation requires the use of the breathing muscles.
• The inhaled air is filled with oxygen, and the oxygen is transported to the lungs and then to the blood, and carbon dioxide is excreted.
• By breathing quickly, more oxygen is brought into our bodies.
• The brain, heart, lungs, breathing muscles and airway work in perfect coordination with each other so that our bodies function with normal breathing.
• Any defect in these organs, we find difficulty breathing, and the body gives us indications of the location of the defect through a specific sound during breathing.

What does a child who has difficulty breathing look like?

• The affected child needs more air due to difficulty breathing, and this is determined by the cause and age.
• A child with difficulty breathing breathes rapidly and abnormally and makes different sounds while breathing.
• When the condition deteriorates, the child’s tongue, lips, and skin become bluish, and his response to external stimuli becomes less.
• The child’s ribs protrude whenever he takes a breath, his stomach swells, and his nostrils expand.

What does the affected child’s voice sound like?

• The airway is divided into upper (nose, mouth, pharynx) and lower (larynx, trachea, bronchioles, and alveoli) airways.
• The sound that accompanies difficulty breathing depends on its location in the respiratory tract.

1- The upper respiratory tract

• the noseIts blockage leads to snoring, which is common in infants.
• Mouth and pharynxEnlarged tonsils and adenoids lead to an enlarged voice, snoring, and sleep apnea.
• In children under four years of age, pus may accumulate in the tissues behind the pharynx, along with a rise in temperature and an amplified voice. The abscess must be opened as soon as possible so that it does not cause the airway to close, or explode and lead to the pus leaking into the lungs.
• throatIt contains the vocal cords, which are divided into three parts:

2- Above the vocal cords

• Its blockage leads to amplification of the sound
• The epiglottis becomes enlarged, soft and saggy.
• The vocal cords are the second cause of the hissing sound in infants, which is vocal cord paralysis.

3- Under the vocal cords

• Its blockage causes a sharp sound to be produced during breathing
• If the difficulty breathing is severe, the child will be kept in the hospital for days and given medications through steam, and he may need a tube to breathe into the windpipe.

4- Trachea

• Its blockage leads to difficulty in exhaling air and is called wheezing.
• Its causes are infections in the trachea, foreign bodies, and congenital defects in the blood vessels outside the trachea.

5- Bronchi

• The trachea is divided into two parts (right and left).
• Its blockage leads to whistling during inhalation and exhalation.
• Its causes include infections in the bronchial tubes and foreign bodies.

6- Lower respiratory tract

• Bronchial bronchial tubesbranching off from the bronchi.
• AndIts whistling sound is heard with a stethoscope only in minor obstructions.
• Strong obstruction causes wheezing during inhalation and exhalation.
• Its causes include inflammation of the bronchial tubes and bronchial asthma.
• Its treatment includes medications, steam and oxygen.
• For alveoliIts blockage requires the use of a stethoscope. To hear the sound coming out.
• It’s like a cracking sound when it swells and then fluffs up.
• Its causes include chronic lung infections.

When should children be referred to the doctor?

• Most often, to diagnose difficulty breathing, a visit to an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) surgeon is required.
• Endoscopy removes foreign bodies that the child may swallow.
• In some cases, a sample of pus is taken from the airways or lungs and sent to the laboratory to culture it and determine the bacteria causing the infection.
• The endoscope is used for softening of the larynx, paralysis of the vocal cords, and hoarseness.

General causes of shortness of breath

There are many causes of dyspnea or shortness of breath, some of which are due to the respiratory system, the heart, or other diseases, including:

1- Chronic obstructive pulmonary syndrome

• It is a group of diseases that cause obstruction of air flowing into the lungs.
• Which causes a group of symptoms such as shortness of breath, cough, phlegm, and wheezing in the chest.
• Among the diseases that also cause the syndrome are emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma.
• Smoke causes the development of chronic syndrome, as well as other factors such as genetic factors and air pollutants.

2- Asthma

• Shortness of breath associated with asthma is one of the most common reasons a patient enters the emergency room.
• About five percent of people in the world suffer from asthma.
• Asthma causes narrowing and swelling of the airways, produces mucus, and causes shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, and frequent coughing attacks, as a result of several factors, such as exercise, dust mites, germs, animal dander, and chemical fumes.

3- Intercellular lung disease (ILD)

• This term refers to a diverse category of lung diseases, and not a specific disease, that attacks intercellular tissue. These diseases have clinical symptoms and different underlying causes, and therefore pose a challenge to the doctor.
• At its beginning, the lung is exposed to an external factor (such as asbestos, drugs, moldy hay).
• Or the lungs may be exposed and damaged as a result of an autoimmune disease (rheumatoid arthritis).
• Or it may be exposed to unknown factors, and these factors result in inflammatory reactions to repair lung tissue, and the repair process may be incomplete.
• This exposes the lung to permanent damage, leading to a severe deterioration in its functions, and disruption of gas exchange, causing those affected to develop shortness of breath and cough, which prompts them to seek medical care.

4- Pulmonary valve

• It occurs as a result of a blockage in the pulmonary arteries, as a result of blood clots from the lower extremities through the right heart cavity and from there to the lungs. Deep leg clots are the main source of pulmonary embolism.
• Therefore, when we notice painful swelling in one of the legs, ankles, or feet, we should treat ourselves as having deep vein thrombosis in the leg.
• Many factors increase the risk of leg stroke, the most common of which is sitting for long periods, as well as traveling for long periods, and its symptoms include shortness of breath, coughing, and chest pain that increases during inhalation and exhalation.

5- Pneumothorax

• It results from the accumulation of air in the pleural sac, the separator between the outer surface of the lung and the inside of the chest wall.
• Air is a restriction that comes from the lung or from outside the body when exposed to a chest injury.
• Her patients complain of shortness of breath and chest pain during breathing.

6- Pulmonary arterial hypertension

• It is a rare condition, but it is for all ages, especially for those who suffer from heart or lung problems.
• It results in high pressure in the lung arteries, causing shortness of breath, dizziness, palpitations, and swelling of the legs.

7- Pneumonia

• It is the result of various factors, such as viruses, germs, and fungi that reach the lungs in different ways.
• Its main symptom is shortness of breath, especially in elderly people over the age of sixty.
• Other symptoms include fever, chest pain, cough, and hemoptysis.

8- Lung cancer

• It is the most ferocious type of cancer.
• It is responsible for one fifth of the world’s deaths.
• Smoking is considered the primary factor in its formation.

9- Respiratory distress syndrome

• It occurs after contracting medical conditions, such as microbial blood poisoning, trauma, inhalation of toxic gases, and climbing to heights of more than two thousand five hundred meters above the ground.
• Symptoms include progressive shortness of breath, lack of oxygen, and the appearance of bilateral infiltrates evident on a chest x-ray.

10- Angina pectoris

• It expresses chest pain and discomfort, and the pain may extend to the shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, or the back area between the shoulders.
• Shortness of breath is often the only symptom.
• It occurs as a result of insufficient blood flow in the coronary artery, which leads to insufficient access of oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle.
• Her patient does not complain of symptoms while resting, but they appear during exercise to increase the oxygen requirements of the heart muscle, so the pain occurs for a short period, and disappears when resting and taking treatment.
• This is stable angina, and there are other types, such as unstable angina, unusual angina, and angina specific to women, and all of these are not hidden from the treating physician.

11- Acute coronary syndrome

• It is a group of conditions associated with a sudden decrease in blood flow to the heart muscle, as a result of fragmentation of part or parts of fatty plaques within the coronary arteries feeding the heart.
• The patient feels severe chest pain, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, sudden profuse sweating, and a headache.
• It is an emergency that must be dealt with quickly, and shortness of breath may be its only symptom.

12- Heart failure

• As a result of a weak heart muscle, due to not pumping enough oxygenated blood for the body’s needs.
• It can be caused by many reasons, such as coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, heart valve disease, heart rhythm disturbances, anemia, hyperthyroidism, shortness of breath, and swelling of the ankles, which are the main symptoms of heart failure.

13- Heart valve disease

The heart contains four valves, and one of them may suffer from a disease and be unable to perform its function properly.

• Valve disease is one of the causes of shortness of breath, especially among the elderly, and the most common diseases are aortic valve stenosis and mitral valve insufficiency.
• Other symptoms of valve disease include fatigue, irregular heartbeat, fainting, dizziness, and chest pain.

14- Cardiac arrhythmia

• As a result of irregular heartbeats, which causes the heartbeat to speed up or slow down.
• There are many causes that lead to heart arrhythmia.
• Symptoms include shortness of breath.

15- Anemia

• It is the lack of availability of red blood cells carrying oxygen to tissues in the body.
• The disease develops gradually, and is accompanied by symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, weakness, palpitations, coldness, and numbness in the extremities.

16- Obesity

• Obesity can hinder the natural expansion of the lungs.
• It causes shortness of breath and a lack of blood oxygen, especially if the waist becomes large.

17- Lack of physical fitness

• Those who do not exercise or move little usually complain of shortness of breath.
• It disappears quickly when the level of physical fitness is restored and the work of the heart and lungs is regulated.

18- Hyperventilation and anxiety

• Anxiety patients usually suffer from shortness of breath as well as hyperventilation.
• Shortness of breath is a symptom, not a disease, so it is very important to accurately determine its causes. Because it often indicates the presence of an emergency health problem, it must be managed before it is too late.

Shortness of breath in children or difficulty breathing is a very annoying problem that results from diseases or the practice of wrong habits. There are natural prevention methods that help avoid it. In serious cases, a doctor must be consulted to carry out the necessary tests.