What can Buteyko do for your child?

 

 

 

Buteyko can enable your children to: 

• Dramatically reduce medication.
• Control the asthma or allergies instead of them controlling you and your family.
• Considerably lessen allergic reactions in the airways, skin and digestive system.
• Improve your child's enjoyment and performance in sport and exercise.

Buteyko can improve you family's quality of life by: 

• Giving you sound strategies that work in overcoming the symptoms.
•  Allowing you all to have a good night’s sleep.
•  Providing a greater understanding of asthma.
•  Taking the fear out of asthma.

 

 

Buteyko is successful in eliminating symptoms of asthma and allergies /eczema because it addresses the cause, and it involves a total approach to health. Breathing is your most basic requirement for balance and good health, yet it is the least likely to be considered just because it is so simple. Breathing affects every cell in your body and, like blood pressure, it is easy for breathing to become abnormal without you being aware of it. This upsets the basic rhythm of life and the body works less effectively.

 

Studies show that people with asthma breathe 2- 3 times more air than normal even when they do not have symptoms. This is called hyperventilation and Buteyko corrects this abnormal breathing pattern.

Personalised Attention That Ensures the Safety of Your Child

Dr Janet Winter has a supportive approach to teaching children from four years old to learn the Buteyko Method. She personalises the courses and tailors the Buteyko programme to suit each person, because she understands that your child’s health problems and life style are unique. Children have shorter attention spans and like to be active, and their exercises reflect this, they are fun and easy to do. Moreover, children tend to progress with their exercises and recovery from asthma symptoms very quickly.  Breathlessness, wheezing and coughing will soon be reduced.

 

Janet expects you to telephone with questions and to return to class if you have problems in the future.

Buteyko is not about throwing away medication. Reductions are done safely as symptoms reduce and with consultation with your doctor when necessary.

 

 

Very young children 

 

I am happy to share with you BBEA tips for asthma and young children. I always feel badly for parents of children with severe asthma who are too young to learn the Buteyko method, they should ideally be at least four years old. Some parents hate to put such young children on such strong medication, and emergency trips to the hospital must be terrifying. Perhaps if you can put these tips into practice, your children will never need Buteyko, or drugs! Remember that these tips do not substitute for medical advice.

 

 Question: My 3 year old son is a mouth breather. I have been working with him to start nose breathing, and he can indeed do it after much encouragement. Do you have any recommendations for working with children to encourage proper breathing? Or any reading material, etc?

Answer: Good for you to be helping your son now, before mouth breathing becomes a long termhab it. We don’t usually start teaching the Buteyko method to children under four, but there are things you can do now which will be very helpful.

First, any time you are reading to him or watching TV with him and his mouth is open, gently push it shut. At other times, play a game with him of putting your finger to your lips when you see his mouth open, and encourage him to do the same if he sees your mouth open, i.e. teaching him to be aware of an open mouth and then shutting it. If you are out and about, do the same.

At night,  check on him after he’s asleep to see that his mouth is shut, gently closing it if it isn’t.

Make a game of climbing steps with a closed mouth, or riding a tricycle, or just running around—he can pretend to be a horse galloping or a kangaroo jumping or a rabbit hopping, just to help him get in the habit of doing all these things with a closed mouth, also when he is concentrating on building his blocks or whatever.

If he is stuffed up, you can play a nodding or walking game. With his mouth shut, have him hold his nose after a normal breath out, and walk or nod his head until he wants to take another breath, but to breathe in through his nose at the end. He can do this repeatedly, though with some time in between. He might get lightheaded otherwise. If he is stuffed up, this will help clear his nose so he can breathe through it, but then he has to keep his mouth shut not to stuff up again! You could also use the bulb and saline solution that you can buy at the chemist’s to help clear his nose, and put a few drops of eucalyptus oil on his pyjamas when he goes to bed.

There is an excellent little book, “Always Breathe Correctly” written by my colleague Patrick McKeown specially for young children, on how to help them do it.

 

(Some weeks later). I never got a chance to thank you, but your message was really helpful. Within a week, my son began nose breathing consistently for the first time in a year.

Thank you, thank you! And now for my daughter...

 

 Reading this could be the first step towards improving your child’s asthma, eczema and allergies. It is also the first step for your own peace of mind about the condition because Buteyko is a natural, drug-free way of improving health and reducing symptoms of asthma, allergies, hay fever, panic, snoring and eczema.