A new study out of Australia shows that as many as 17 per cent of children have had wheezing or asthma before age three. By age five, the number has climbed above 20 per cent, according to the Asthma in Australian Children report.

This is an alarming statistic, given the severity of this chronic condition. Australia has one of the highest childhood asthma rates in the world.

Report author, Guy Marks, is the director of the Australian Centre for Asthma Monitoring. Marks says that there are several risk factors for asthma, including smoking during pregnancy, a mother with asthma, and premature birth. However, less well-known risk factors also affect the development of asthma, such as having a mother under age 25. In addition, being born male means a higher risk than being born female.

As expected, the longer a child is breastfed, the less likely that they develop any kind of wheezing illness, due to the benefits of breastfeeding.

Marks says that the risk factors for asthma in the first couple of years of life are quite different from the risk factors for older children.

Peter Sly, pediatrician and professor at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth believes that the report does not show the full rate of wheezing illnesses in children. Sly believes the real rates are almost double that cited in the report. Sly states that two-fifths of children will have suffered with wheezing by the time they are five years of age. However, most will grow out of it – and should not be diagnosed with asthma.

Sly says that the real test of whether a child has asthma or not depends on whether the condition persists into adulthood.

Research has been done into which children will have persistent asthma. Sly indicates that kids with frequent wheezing with viral infections, as well as allergic sensitization at a young age, are the most likely to develop asthma that persists into adulthood.

Source: AM from ABC.net.au