When Meghan Rosen?s* daughter, Isla*, was an infant, she would start to wheeze whenever she had a cold. At night, her mom could hear the fluid in her lungs and airways. ?She sounded almost like a smoker when she coughed. She would cough a lot, and you could see her belly and chest really going up and down as she was struggling to breathe.? As a preschooler, Isla?s breathing problems persisted?many nights when she had a cold, she slept propped up on pillows to make breathing easier. When she woke up coughing, her mom would give her a few puffs of an inhaler, which the doctor had prescribed to keep on hand for when she got sick. 
At age five, Isla had a particularly severe episode of coughing and wheezing, which landed her in Toronto?s SickKids Hospital overnight. At that point, she got an official diagnosis for her breathing trouble: asthma.  Asthma is a chronic airway condition estimated to affect 600,000 children under age 12 in Canada, making it the most common chronic condition in Canadian kids. Those with untreated asthma have inflammation in their lungs, which can lead to their airways narrowing or tightening, causing breathing difficulty. This tends to happen when the child is exposed to a trigger, like a cold virus, cigarette smoke, exercise or an allergen (such as pollen, animal fur or perfume). With proper medical management, kids with asthma should be able to run, play and lead regular lives, symptom-free. But according to a 2016 survey by the Lung Association, ...