Asthma is a respiratory disease that causes the swelling and inflammation in the lungs due to which the flow of air to the lungs reduces. This reduction in turn causes breathlessness, wheezing, chest tightness and coughing.
Though this is a very common lung problems, only 7-8% pregnant women are affected with it. You need to continue with your medicines if you are having the problem before you conceived. The symptoms of asthma can be worse during 24th to 34th week of pregnancy. Sometimes, asthma can get worsened in pregnancy and sometimes pregnancy improves the condition.
Symptoms of asthma are breath shortness, tightness of chest, noisy breathing, consistent cough, whistling sound while breathing, and stuffy nose. These can be accompanied by fatigue, insomnia or headache. Asthma symptoms can be mild but can also life threatening. So it’s better that you should visit your doctor and should consult him.
Risks of asthma in pregnancy vary from person to person. Most women who suffer from asthma give birth to healthy babies. But if asthma is uncontrollable, your baby can have low birth weight. This is because h/she will be getting too little oxygen. Other risks that are involved with asthma in pregnancy are premature labor, excessive vomiting, still birth.
Some of the ways that can be very helpful to control asthma during pregnancy are to keep your home and your surroundings dust free; to stay away from furry pets; avoid perfumes, sprays, deodorants. Sometimes anxiety and stress also triggers the attack. In short, you have to keep in mind that what triggers your asthma and should stay away from it. You should take fish and apples in your diet. This will lower the asthma attacks. If exercises trigger asthmatic attack, then you should consult your doctor to tell you alternative exercises.
If you are already medicating asthma, the question that comes in mind is whether you should breast feed your baby or not? The answer to this is that you can absolutely breastfeed your baby as it will not cause any adverse effect on the baby. Make sure that you continue medication so as to control asthma. You can only prevent asthma but can’t cure it.
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