If My Toddler Wheezes With Colds, Will He/She Have Asthma Later In Life?

— -- Question:If my toddler wheezes with colds, will he/she have asthma when they are older?

Answer: One of the challenges that pediatricians and family practitioners face when they see a child under the first three years of life who's wheezing is this asthma or not. Now the reality is that for most children who wheeze only once, in fact, this is not an asthmatic attack. And of all children who wheeze at least once in the first three years, only 40 percent -- so four out of every 10 -- go on to get asthma. And six of every 10 grow out of it.

Having a family history of asthma increases the risk of going on to asthma; having more than one attack -- having recurrent attacks or severe attacks, needing to be hospitalized, increases the chance that a child is going to go on to have asthma. And obviously any child with persistent recurrent wheezing early in life should be seen and looked at very carefully to rule out other diseases.

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