In his short year and a half of life, my son, Liam, has already suffered from acute bronchitis twice. The first time was so severe that it almost turned into pneumonia. We ended up hospitalizing him for 3 days. Initially, I did not attach too much significance to these illnesses. LIttle kids get sick, right? Most of my friends’ children here in Shanghai have had bronchitis at least once if not more. I mean, doesn’t every mom own a nebulizer?
Recently, I was completing a preschool application for Liam and asked my pediatrician to fill out the health history portion. To my dismay, she wrote that Liam had “weak lungs.” This completely freaked me out. Two isolated bouts of bronchitis seem so much less serious than the image of my son’s little, itsy bitsy lungs being “weak”. Looking outside at the gray, polluted sky, I began to wonder whether it was Shanghai’s poor air quality that was weakening Liam’s lungs. I know my mom friends back home talk about kids getting sick often. But, do kids who live in less polluted places get bronchitis as frequently as here? Or, are we just talking about the common cold and flu?
We spend so much of our time and effort as parents protecting our children’s health, safety and well-being. Despite all we do, is the mere fact that we subject them to Shanghai’s air pollution hurting them? How does this factor into our decisions regarding whether to stay here and for how long? Like many here, I have purchased several IQ Air Filters for our apartment. Is this enough? What else can we as parents do? Now that the weather is getting nice, I want to talk Liam outside more often. Is this healthy?
I am going to do further research on this issue. In the meanwhile, please share any experiences, thoughts and opinions you have on this subject with me.
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